


Brothers come in kinds

by AgapantoBlu



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: But it's not actually true, But it's the Batfamily so does it count?, Child Abuse, Dramatics, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to You Hid Your Secret Identity From Me For Fifteen Years I Hate You to Lovers, Hence the "Misunderstandings" tag, Identity Porn, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pour one out for Tim who's too tired to deal with this shit, Slow Burn, mentioned - Freeform, more like, superbat exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: Clark Kent has received an anonymous tip containing Jason Todd’s original autopsy, and implying Bruce Wayne had been abusing him before that. Of course, he hurries to offer his protection to the other children. Tim is thoroughly exhausted and misses being an only child. Bruce broods.[My gift for Cruria's Superbat Exchange 2019]
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 70
Kudos: 1597
Collections: Superbat Exchange Winter 2019





	Brothers come in kinds

“-and finally you need to write a letter to the City Council to tell them if you decided to help funding the new subway line connecting the Diamond District to the Centre.”

“You mean _you_ need to write it.”

Chelsea smiled sweetly. “You need to tell me what you decided if you want me to write it.”

“You already know what I decided,” Tim groaned. “There’s three lines like that already, but none for the Bowlery or West End. When they draft a line like that, I’ll be happy to fund it.”

Chelsea nodded and jotted a note down on her pad. “Do you want it politely worded or I’m-tired-of-this-shit worded?”

“If I say tired-of-this-shit will you get me more coffee?”

“I’m under strict orders to limit your intake.”

“That’s not a no.”

“No.”

Tim thumped his forehead on the desk. He felt the lucid paper of the invitation to the annual Halloween Party at the Gotham Golf Club stick to his skin. “This is because I dropped out of high school and refused to go to college.”

“This is because you’re nineteen, and ninety percent caffeine. Politely worded, it is. What about today’s meeting with the Daily Planet reporter? Are you going to stop wallowing in time to meet up with him or should I come up with an excuse?”

“No, I’ll see him. It’s just a puff piece they’re making for the financial section; young promises of business or something equally snobbish.” He lifted his head just to slump against the chair backrest. The invitation remained attached. He stared cross-eyed at the letters until his sleep induced migraine left way to ocular muscles pain. “Dick dropped out of college, but I don’t see anyone policing his cereals intake.”

“You have five more minutes to grumble on about college; after that, your journalist will be here and I’m kicking your ass if you’re not presentable.” Chelsea took the card from his face and he watched her pleadingly as she collected all the mail he’d read and checked to deal with the responses.

“Just one tiny cup…”

“No.”

“Who signs your checks?”

“Your father, as a matter of fact.” She sent him a stern look as she closed the door of his office. “Three minutes.”

Tim groaned again.

He dragged his hands over his face in a desperate attempt to wake up his face muscles from their anaesthetic sleep, but all he felt was the dampened impression of a touch. Pulling an all nighter before the monthly meeting with the Board of Directors for WE was far from the most intelligent thing he’d ever done, but there had been a minor break out from Arkham’s low-danger wing three nights ago which had required most of them to pull their weight. And with Bruce’s face all dolled up in purple bruises curtesy of Killer Croc, they’d had no choice but to stage a sudden business trip to Chicago and spend two nights preparing Tim on the topic so he'd be the one to show up at the office.

Normally, Tim loved working. WE was a complex beast in which every minuscule cell needed to work perfectly, and when that happened Gotham followed it diligently like a chariot with its mare. Batman had a purpose and a function in the city, but his reach only extended to the nightly and blatant side of crime; for the daily and subtler aspects, the Martha Wayne Foundation was a diamond spear that needed constant funding and attentively vetted personal. That Bruce trusted Tim with the company never failed to make his chest swell with pride.

Robin had been passed around, but this? Only Tim got to do this.

Except. Journalists, paparazzi, corrupted councilmen, greedy businessmen; all those people sucked the enjoyment right out of him. When his brain ran thousand miles per hour with all the ways he could spend his time, having to waste it on the same five questions on rotation was the same slow agony as bleeding out from a million paper cuts. Really, he would have traded for a round with Bane, and thanked him for it.

Chelsea rapped her knuckles on his office door, smiling at him with unbridled sadism through the glass. “Break time over, boss.”

Behind her, he could see the silhouette of a man spilling from the elevator with just about the same grace of a newborn calf, or Bruce’s after he pretended to drink half his weight in expensive alcohol.

Tim stifled the urge to groan — again — and instead plastered on his face the brightest smile he could find in himself. Chelsea seemed to be satisfied as she opened the door for the Daily Planet journalist.

He did not look like a journalist. Tim had dealt with all kinds of press people, from the lowest of paparazzi’s to Pulitzer prizes like Lois Lane, but this man was nothing like any of them. If anything, he looked like post-workout Bruce, only taller and less brooding. And wearing a plaid shirt that B wouldn’t be caught dead in, red lines to draw squares on a pastel yellow tone. Downright despicable; the only reason this man could wear such a thing was that his shoulders stuffed it enough to draw away the attention from the hideousness of the pattern.

Tim got up from his seat and offered his hand from above the desk. The man’s engulfed his, and he was so tall he had to crane his neck to properly look at his face. “Mr. Kent. Glad you could make it.”

“Thank you for meeting me with such short notice, Mr Drake,” Kent smiled.

Tim’s warning bells went off in his head. “Of course. Have a seat.”

It wasn’t that the smile was insincere, or that the grip of his hand was too tight or threatening, nothing of the sort. Kent stood hunched in the shoulders and dipped his head to fix his glasses and the overall impression he gave was that he was much smaller and meeker than anyone of his size ought to seem at first impression. He’d barely grazed Tim’s hand, his hold had been soft and let go immediately after, and he’d moved slow in the space between them always leaving plenty of room in between. He’d smiled in a way that was too open, too reassuring, for an interview.

Tim had done a few things like those himself — not that he’d normally need to make himself look smaller, true, but when in costume. When dealing with a scared victim.

He made a display to sit comfortably in his chair and staple his fingers together, elbows on the desk, to look at Kent from above his hands.

The role he played in WE was simple enough: a blessing miracle come from a tragedy. Brucie Wayne’s third son who somehow possessed both a brain — differently from his adoptive father — and ambition — differently from his older brother — and was still alive — differently from his second older brother — to have an interest in leading the family company with some serious effort. The day he’d been introduced to the office, B had made a huge display of not knowing where anything was or what any floor was devoted to. “My job is to show up at meetings—,” he’d said with a boisterous laughter, “—and sometimes sign a check.” Tim had offered the woman giving him the tour an apologetic look and replied that surely there was more to do in such a big place, and he’d been her favourite Wayne ever since.

This interview in itself was nothing surprising. Tim’s effort in WE had been earnest and caught lots of attention once it had been clear the son was nothing like the father. Part of it was because he truly loved the job and it felt nice to have this one thing to share with B, at times as a way to pay him back for all he’d done; and partially he was not so in denial that he couldn’t admit he loved sitting in a board meeting and knowing he was the smartest and best prepared in the room. Sue him for that.

The Daily Planet had a monthly page dedicated to fluff pieces about important or inspiring people and, yes, Tim had expected to feature in it sooner or later. Dick had had his share of spotlight when he’d followed in Bruce’s footsteps to end on Gotham’s Sexiest Men annual article and Jason only liked attention from the newspapers when they were covering some arson he’d set up in a meth lab. It was only natural for Tim to follow in their footsteps, except much more gracefully.

The look on Kent’s face was not that of a fluff piece, nor the folder he pulled out of his bag to rest on his legs seemed fit for a few harmless questions. It was of brown paper, a couple inches thick, and slightly worn out at the edges.

“I fear your readers will be disappointed,” he tried, smiling angelically. A joke, he decided on. “I am nowhere near as interesting as my father.”

Wrong choice, and Tim almost blatantly blinked. He didn’t happen to be wrong often.

Kent flinched at his words. He stiffened and his jaw made a convoluted work of keeping very still and hermetic against whatever instinctual words he had. His fingers spasmed just slightly over the folder in his lap, which only served to underline how he had yet to pull out a pen or a notebook. Instead, he threw a look at his back to check on Chelsea, but seeing her deeply immersed in her work on her computer didn’t seem to ease him up any.

He turned back forward and, impossibly, somehow managed to look stiffer even as he bent forward, almost over the desk. “Mr Drake—”

“Tim, please,” he replied, and stopped himself just short of _Mr Drake was my father_. It would have been a lie, anyway; Tim’s father had never worn the name Drake.

“Tim.” Kent tried the name on his tongue with a voice just shy of cracking, like he couldn’t believe he was there, couldn’t believe he was doing this, didn’t know where to start.

There was another man like that, one time, years ago; he was in a cop uniform and brought the news of Jack’s death.

“Tim,” Kent repeated and then took a deep breath. When he looked up again, his eyes were firmer and colder, slightly slitted. “I recently came into possession of something, regarding Mr Wayne, and I wished to bring it up to you before doing anything about it.”

For a fraction of a second so infinitesimally small to be negligible, Tim thought, _he knows_. Flashes of the GCPD roaming the Manor, ripping every inch apart and digging their way to the cave. So many strangers finding their sanctuary and tearing it down; so many crooked cops with a grudge getting their hands on Bruce and Dick and Damian. On Alfred.

Batman’s thorough training was the only thing that allowed him to keep a neutral face in front of the scenario playing in his head. Tim was desperately grateful for it. “I’m sorry," he said, still smiling affably. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Kent pursed his lips.

Without a word, he offered the folder from above the desk and Tim hesitated. He could hear Bruce’s voice in his head, _play dumb, ask what it is, don’t take it unless you’re absolutely sure it’s not going to kill you. Press the panic button on your cufflink_.

He took the folder instead. Kent kept staring at him with a serious expression, even as Tim opened it.

Batman’s training crumbled, a sand castle in front of a sea storm.

The pictures weren’t even the worst of it. They were plenty devastating, as Jason was barely recognisable in any of them, filthy in dried blood and ashes and dirt. The shape of his torso sent a jolt of sympathetic pain to the ribs Tim himself had broken through the years, and his skull, God, his _skull_. There was so little left of his face. He was in civilian clothes, plain sand brown things that sent Tim almost puking in the trash bin by his side.

Of course he’d known, logically, that Jason couldn’t have been shown to the authorities in his Robin costume, but he’d never stopped to think of the logistics of it; that Bruce must have hold his child’s corpse in his hands and had to divest and dress it up again, and then smudge it back in dirt and blood so that it would be believable, so that people wouldn’t ask questions.

A trembling breath pushed past his lips.

Kent’s eyes were drills digging holes into his skull, but he refused to look up. He forced his way through all the pile, instead. Over the crime scene pictures, to the coroner’s report and the photos from the autopsy.

Because Jason had been made to go through that as well. Cut open with a _Y_ like a huge question carved into his trunk, got no answers in return.

At the bottom were the written reports, and it was curious that there were two of them, curious enough to pique Tim’s interest immediately.

Put side by side, the papers were almost identical. Originals, both of them, but fundamentally different.

The second bore the incipit of Gotham’s Morgue and the name of Leslie as the coroner, and the informations in the body of the text Tim knew. He’d read them himself once, when he was desperate to pull Bruce out of his well and needed to know what had happened in the details. A terrorist attack, kidnapped by a group of dissidents, death by suffocation, torture with a metallic tool in the rough shape of a rod or a tube. All very superficial, no need to look hard into something that was long since part of Gotham’s fucked up routine. Just police jargon for _poor kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrongest fuckers he could have gotten himself caught with_.

The first one came from Dire Daua, Ethiopia, and was a much thicker report from the local coroner who clearly had little experience with torture victims, apparently a newby at the hospital, and much less hesitance in investigating the body of Bruce Wayne’s ward. Together with a detailed report of all injuries at the moment of death, the pain they must have caused, the man had clearly spent a long time checking all the marks he could find, even those old enough to belong to another different life all together.

Cigarette burns, old fractures healed wrong, the thin scars of a patched up knife wound. Four bullets scars in the chest.

Tim understood it before he finished reading, what that doctor had seen and what had dragged Kent all the way to his office from Metropolis. That Jason’s life had been an awful mess of abuses before Bruce took him in wasn’t a secret, all of Gotham had taken its gossip from it for months, but the report had dated some wounds older than those years, earlier than the final kidnapping.

Only one person left to blame for them.

There were several ways to deal with this. He could act surprised and take the time to regroup, talk it out with Bruce who had all the experience to deal with the press. Another option was to furiously throw Kent out, threaten a lawsuit if he dared to print a single word of it and then call Bruce. Or he could deny the implication both of them knew Kent was making, plain and simple; claim that Bruce would have rather cut his own arm off than to hit Jason.

(Back then, at least. They've fought after the Lazarus pit, yes, and they'd hit each others plenty ever since. Even on the “ins”, Bruce and Jason were a dangerous mix to put together.)

Common denominator, he had to call Bruce as soon as possible.

So really, there was no explanation for the way Tim looked at himself closing the folder, extremely slowly, and just saying, “Get out.”

Kent didn't look surprised. It would have been downright infuriating and would have gotten him some heavy paperweight to the head if he hadn't also started to get up.

When he reached for his folder and he hunched forward and bent his head, it wasn't to hide his height, but to make sure Tim's eyes met his. “I will look more into this. I just wanted you to know, if this is true, that I _could_ protect you. You just have to say the word, I promise.”

A strange wheezing sound came out of Tim's throat. Just the mental image of the over-muscled reporter taking a swing at the Batman was laughable. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I know—,” and for some crazy reason, he truly sounded like he did, “—that he’s rich and powerful and strong. And I knew another man like him and what he did to his son and what all that hurt did to that kid. He was my friend and I couldn’t help him, but I’m going to do it this time.” He eyed Tim's arms as if to appease them, and surely he must have compared them to Bruce’s so much bulkier frame because he closed his eyes for a moment and his hands trembled just slightly. “Tim, I promise, I could-”

“Timothy,” he corrected, voice as cold as he felt, as he'd gone when he'd opened the damn folder and saw Jason's pubescent corpse screaming tragedy to his face. “Actually, I think Mr Drake-Wayne would be best, Mr Kent.”

Kent looked at him silently. After a second, he pulled a business card from his pocket and left it on the desk in place of the folder. “If you ever need help, call me. I'll come, no matter what or where.”

It was a good spiel, Tim thought. Not the best, too pushy and with little room for Tim to edge a word in, if he’d even had something to say, but nice enough. If he'd been the abuse victim of a billionaire with a sadistic streak, he would eat that right up. Not just for the words, the balls of the set up, the personal addition, the physical proof Kent had on Bruce and his reputation as the one reporter along Lane who’d managed to get Alexander Luthor from the front page of a scandal to a court room.

It would mostly be for the eyes, he reasoned. The way they shone with desperation and sheer need to help, how they never strayed from Tim as if to scream, _I'm watching, I'm seeing, I'm not pretending this isn't happening, I see what he's doing, I see you hurting, I see you._ It was hard to look at those eyes and think they'd lie.

Kent left extremely silently, for a man his size. Chelsea wouldn't have noticed him leaving if he hadn't stopped by her desk to say hello on his way out.

Her expression went through several stages of grief as she watched him disappear in the elevator just to fall back on disbelief as she turned to meet his eyes through the glass of the door, but Tim had already put his coat on by the time she did so.

He didn't let her get a word in when he passed by her desk. “Cancel all my appointments for the day. If anyone asks, I'm out on a family emergency.”

“Is there one?” she yelled at his back as he got to the emergency stairs. “A family emergency?”

 _Let's hope not_ , he thought but he let the closing door be his only answer.

Because dealing with rich bastards meant any microscopic deviance from the norm could and would be used against him, most probably outside of court but also in one, Clark had had to flew to Gotham in a plane, rent a room and a car and drive all the way to the Wayne Tower for his meeting.

It came in handy after the meeting itself, because the beat-up Honda Civic he’d been conned into taking allowed him an enclosed space to squirrel himself into. The urge to just take off and make a couple rounds around the globe just to burn off some of the nervous energy in his shoulders was still there, but he’d sat through too many of Batman’s spiels and lessons on self control to forget how to keep his cool, therefore he closed his eyes and took a deep breath instead, maybe two. Make it three.

Three’s the charm, but four does no harm.

He groaned and — _very_ gently — hit his head on the steering wheel.

Of course, he’d always known getting into this story was going to be hard on him. The topic of adoption was a touchy one, both as an adopted kid whose adoptive parents had done everything for and as a superhero who’d had to take in custody more than an abusive foster or adoptive relative and routinely found himself wishing to just take down the whole social system brick by brick. Also, _Gotham_ , which meant everything was just _worse_ and _more difficult_ , because, of course, why not.

He was still struggling to believe it.

Bruce Wayne. Brucie. The dumbass who’d spilled two whole champagne glasses on his suit at Luthor’s gala for Metropolis Library, claimed to be in high favour of _books_ and then left the gala far too early with the hottest lady in the room, Miss Diana Prince from Paris. They’d met some other times as well, but Clark could spend weeks reviving every second of those meetings and not find anything remarkable about the man except the fact that someone managed to take care of his businesses well enough that his godawful personal reputation hadn’t impaired them. The charms of a rich playboy came easy to him, but other than the risk of some unasked for flirting, Brucie had never pinged in his radar as anything but innocuous.

Then on one Tuesday an anonymous file had been mailed to his desk at the Daily Planet. No return address, of course, and no post stamp either. He’d had to trade in a favour to a security guy Lois knew well to find a camera which showed a man in a coat, sunglasses and a cap slipping the folder in the mail cart without being noticed, then leaving through the main doors.

And what a fucking folder. He’d cried for hours after reading it, and then he’d called Ma’ and spent an whole hour on the phone just sobbing _thank you_ ’s and _I’m sorry_ ’s and _I love you Mom_ ’s. She’d almost booked a flight for Metropolis right there, probably, for how much he’d freaked her out with his break down.

Clark was never one to trust anonymous leads blindly. For one thing, it felt suspiciously easy to have a scoop without having to work for it for months, no chasing leads and no threats of suing and no endless hours of stake-outs or data browsing. For another, when the target of such vicious stories was someone as renowned and rich as Bruce Wayne, a shade of doubt fell effortlessly over any so-called skeleton magically pulled to light.

For a billionaire, Wayne had hands in projects for the betterment of impoverished areas and communities, free-healthcare support, work placement, communal structures and transportations, economical assistance, and organisations aimed at helping abused spouses and children or victims of the ever returning sociopathic villains all over the goddamn city. Gotham was fiercely protective of her dumb yet generous little prince, but only in her lower and middle class. Those of the one percenters who stuck around the city for the bragging rights at the next mundane event in New York, and those who muddled so deep in the dirty money and criminal activities that they no longer blinked an eye at even the worst of it, they _despised_ him.

All of it made the circumstances of an anonymous lead just dropping proof that the paladin of all in need had been perpetuating the most brutal case of relentless and methodical child abuse of the past so-many-decades was suspect at best. A huge hint of something big stewing, just waiting for the best moment to happen, at worst, because there were only so many good reason to wish the demise of Wayne and plenty bad ones instead.

Today’s meeting, well. Clark wasn’t sure what he'd been truly expecting. Outrage, shock, terror at the pictures, disgust at the charges, something that could tell him, at the very least emotionally, that this whole mess was fake and Bruce Wayne was just as dumb and gullible as he seemed and there was no wolf hidden under granny’s nightgown.

Instead, Tim’s reaction had been a complete shut-out. Thirty-six layers of steel rolling-shutters falling down at once. Some laser beans here and there and a moat full of alligators all around. _Drake-Wayne_ , he’d said, and he couldn’t have underlined the hyphenated surname if he’d picked an highlighter and coloured it all in bright pink.

Clark pulled himself from the steering wheel and forced himself to take a deep breath.

Two reasons came to mind for such a refusal.

First, Bruce Wayne was a good parent who’d been attacked before in his parental role — and he’d been, Clark had found plenty of articles targeting his issues, his behaviour, his past shenanigans, his drunk escapades, his playboy persona, how similar all his children looked, how _low-life_ compared to him, saviour syndrome or a spoiled child’s caprice, everything had been said already — so his kids had become distrusting and downright hostile toward press insinuations on such matters. Possible, truly, Clark had had his own excessive reactions at some tactless questions about his adoption. He got it.

Second, Bruce was a monster, everything was true and Tim was the third child to have lived through that Hell, with a brother who’d run away at seventeen to survive and one who’d died at fifteen for staying and one who was twelve with nobody else to protect him. And a sister who’d never been heard speaking a single word, because Clark didn’t forget about Cassandra Wayne, the one deviation from Wayne's preferred canons in orphans, currently living in Hong Kong, quietly entered into the family and just as quietly slipped so far away. Duke Thomas, still a fostered child, had yet to be adopted officially which meant he was still to a degree under the supervision of child services and most probably had yet to be touched. Wayne had gotten away with five children already, it stood to reason that he’d be careful for as long as Thomas had people to refer to outside the walls of Wayne Manor, people who kept a careful eye on him and his relationship with Bruce in particular.

Clark didn’t like these odds, at all.

The clock on the dashboard told him he’d spent a good half an hour sitting in the car feeling like shit and trying not to cry again. By now, he could guess Wayne had been fully informed of his investigations; of his existence as well, since the man couldn't remember Clark’s face and name for two consecutive events.

Turning the car on and reversing out of the parking spot drained him of all his inhuman strength and he drove back to his hotel room feeling emptier by the second.

There was a plan, and multiple back-ups as well, to follow still, and Wayne’s next move to wait on.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel anything over either.

Tim didn't go home.

He’d thought of it, of course, it was the most reasonable course of action: get to Bruce, _Bruce will know how to deal with this, this mess is going to hit him square in the face if you don't warn him beforehand._

He had driven halfway to the Manor before he'd started to think himself in circles, and his foot had slowly lost pressure on the gas pedal.

Tim was rational, calculating and manipulative, he admitted that, but he'd become so because he didn't have any other choice, because when he'd taken the Robin mantle Batman was all _but_. He'd had to be smart enough to predict the situations before they happened, and persuasive enough to talk Bruce into reason rather than just another night of desperate violence that was only half a quest for vengeance and for the other half was blatantly a quest for death.

Deep inside, Bruce never stopped blaming himself for Jason's death. And after every fight, no matter how good the reason, no matter how many hits Jason got in - in return, but more often first -, he hated himself a bit more, because Bruce didn't know how to miss someone without also blaming the loss on himself.

A journalist asking the question, _did you ever hurt your kids?_ , and Tim could almost see it, clear as day, Bruce that answered, _yes, I did, I'm a monster, save them from me_.

Of course he wouldn't, not really, he wasn’t going to put the family through that. But in his mind, where it truly mattered, he would. Tim had seen Bruce at his lowest after Jason's death, and logic said this mess had all the triggers and the potential to explode into a relapse of just that.

His hands turned the wheel and his foot hit the breaks. Tim stopped by the side of the road and closed his eyes tight.

This was bad. He couldn't pretend nothing happened, Kent didn't look like the kind of person who'd give up on such a situation, ever, but he couldn't tell Bruce either.

The idea sprouted in his brain and took over like a vine no matter how much he strived to try and get himself to consider others.

No way in Hell it'd work, he told himself, but so many possibilities stem from that idea, tiny hooks in a waterfall of consequences that had only a handful of scenarios in which they resolved for the best, but they'd be so worth it if they did.

Tim clenched his hands on the steering wheel once more, just another second, and talked himself out of that plan once again. He focused on all the ways in which it could fail, all the people it might hurt in the process, how betrayed Bruce would feel.

Then his fingers punched in the speed dial on the car screen and let the loudspeaker ring be the critic of his awful judgment.

Good nights were a luxury, for Jason. Always were.

As a kid, a good night consisted in mom being half sober enough to help cooking something, the week to have been quiet and fruitful enough for the cupboards to hold a couple edible things in, and Willis to be deep enough into some shit that he wouldn’t bother come home to take his own frustrations out on either of them. After mom’s death and that time on the streets when he couldn’t even begin to fathom what a good night consisted in, a good night with Bruce was one in which they kicked some thugs’ asses without either of them getting hurt, Alfred made cookies and Dick was either away with the Titans or for once not dead-set into starting a fight.

After his death, well. A good night was a night in which he and the family weren’t exactly out for each other’s blood, Gotham’s worst problem was an asshole who missed the memo on what happened to harassers on Red Hood’s turf and it wasn’t raining.

Tonight it wasn’t raining _and_ Jason had a casserole from Alfred waiting for him at home, together with a beer in the fridge and a re-run of _Wuthering Heights_ on TV, which was no _Pride and Prejudice_ but would do for this time.

For all these reasons, having his phone ring when he was fifteen minutes from calling it a night and returning to his safe-house was enough to make him start cussing Ma’ Gunn out in Spanish, just because the habit stuck from his time there, and almost dropping his cigarette. Almost, though. Trying to quit meant he had a very strict gradual plan and he wasn’t willing to waste a breath of his allowed cheats.

Reading _Unknown_ as the caller ID didn’t improve his mood. At all.

He rerouted the call to his hood and took one last mourning lungful from the cigarette before putting the helmet back on. “Hello, you reached Red Hood's voicemail,” he chirped, all fake cheer and niceness. "If you’re Batman, fuck you; if you are or ever were a Robin, the answer’s no; if you’re neither, sleep with an eye open because I don’t know how you got this number but I’m about to find out and it’s not going to be pretty for you.”

“ _How long have you had that ready for?_ ” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, but the Replacement’s annoyingly familiar voice had no respect for the tragic loss of his patience. " _Also it's unnecessary long for a fake voicemail message, Hood. I know you don’t know how to set up a voicemail. I programmed your phone when you bought it, remember?_ ”

He asked the guy for help _one time._ “Fuck you, Red. I missed out on a long ass time of technology development, okay?!”

“ _Whatever,_ ” dude said, like he truly didn’t care. Little shit. “ _I need something._ ”

Of course he did. “Didn’t you listen to me? Answer’s no.”

“ _Come on! I need a favour! I’m your brother!_ ”

Jason looked up at the sky. There were flashes peeking from behind the clouds at the edge of the city, and rapidly approaching. Soon enough, it would pour, and he had no intention of being caught outside when it happened. “That’s not what it says on my death certificate.”

“ _What— Death certificates don’t have siblings’ names on!_ ”

“Well, dude, rule sixty-eight of the undead: your only valid ID is the DC. So, too bad for you.”

He put off his cigarette on the sole of his boot as he listened to Tim's deep sigh. It could almost rival Bruce’s, for length and exhaustion expressivity. “ _Sixty-eight. I guess I should be glad you didn't go for—_ ”

“Rule sixty-nine is: don’t deep-throat a zombie if you’re not 100% sure his dick won’t fall off.”

“ _For fuck’s sake, Hood!_ ”

Jason grinned and shoot a grapple to swing to the rooftop of an adjacent building, heading West to the depths of Crime Alley. “Hey, zombies need to practice safe-sex too! Didn't old Bats give you the talk? Should I remind him?”

“ _I’ll kill you._ ”

“Eh, been there, done that. Be more imaginative, copy-cat.”

“ _Fuck’s… Hood, come on! You’re the only one who can cover our asses this time!_ ”

The emergency stairs were rusty and crooked, so he opted for sliding down the drainpipe to where his bike was parked. “Now, that’s interesting. What kind of mess makes you lift your no-killing rule?”

“ _You don’t need to shoot anyone._ ”

“And we’re back to boring.” He brought his hand to the phone in his pocket to cut the call off once for all. "See ya, Red!”

“ _There’s a journalist digging up dirt around your death._ ”

Jason fumbled. His phone almost slipped out of his pocket and into a puddle of the street, but his reflexes let him catch it just in time. He’d stopped in his tracks just two steps from the bike, but it looked so far and unreachable to him at the moment.

“Bite me,” he said, past the deafening sound of his heartbeat in his ears. “He couldn’t have showed up earlier, could he? I could have used a hand digging myself out.”

By the sound of it, Tim was truly losing his patience now. “ _Why do you always have to be so insufferable?_ ”

“It’s part of my charm.” Automatic answer. Jason’s autopilot returned emotion with snark and care with bullets. Everybody in the family knew that, so the little Replacement had no right to act all pissed over it.

“ _You’re a nerd who asked for the DVD of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly’s signature for Christmas._ ”

“Listen here, you little punk—”

“ _Hood, he thinks B killed you!_ ”

Oh.

Wow.

Okay.

Now. That’s what Jason considered a good night going to _shit_ , and spectacularly so at that.

“ _Hood?_ ”

“Sorry.” He forgot his persona, for a moment, there. The apology came spontaneous off his lips as all his mental energies were rerouted to trying and putting the words into a semblance of sense. “Just trying to figure out how he fucked up so bad, but, uh, yeah, I know exactly how. I told B that his adopting habits were bound to get him in trouble.”

Tim sighed. “ _I don’t know how, but he got your autopsy report from Ethiopia._ ”

“He what?!”

“ _I don’t know!_ ” Distress coloured the little bird’s voice, which was an indicator in itself of how grave the situation was. Tim never lost his head, on the field. “ _His theory is that all the pre-mortem injuries are… well._ ”

Oh, he could guess what the dude thought. How ironic, he wasn’t that off. Just a father to the left from the truth. “Shitfuck of a mess. What’s B gonna do about this?”

There was a second too long of silence. “ _He doesn’t know yet._ ”

“Ah! Very funny, Red!”

“ _Hood._ ”

“You got me there, for a moment! I was so sure you’d just said that there’s a shitstorm coming and B, Greatest Detective, doesn’t. Fucking. Know.”

“ _That Kent dude came to my office first. I told B he wanted an interview with the young CEO, but when the article doesn’t come out, he’ll realise something’s wrong here._ ”

Optimistic much. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he already does.”

“ _Hood, please_ ,” Tim’s voice cracked. “I _need help to get out of this mess. Kent reached out to me now and he said with no half measure that he’s going to keep digging until he finds out exactly what happened. He’s still in Gotham for now, but he’s got a booking at an hotel in Blüdhaven in two days, want three guesses at whom he’s going to meet next? Robin’s probably out of reach for him since he’s a minor, but Black Bat is surely next on the list. And B’s last hearing to officially get Signal’s custody is next week!_ ”

Jason closed his eyes and still saw all the mess piling up in front of him. It made for a huge pile of shit. A Mount Everest of crap. “Why do fucking problems always travel in packs?!”

A sound of tired assent. “ _Will you help me?_ ”

Jason didn’t answer right away. His helmet was still downloading files off the net, automatically searching the web for the name heard on comm, but the titles of the articles were in bold big letters and even just the most superficial of readings could pick on how passionate this Kent dude was about truth, justice and moral integrity.

“Man, I hate to say this, but I’m not sure I can intimidate this dude,” he admitted, letting his eyes linger on a series of articles viciously criticising Gotham’s Batman without a hint of fear of repercussion. "You already said you don’t want me to murder him, so what do you even want me to do? You could hacker the files from his computer better than me, but it won’t change the fact that he’s read them.”

“ _He thinks JT is dead,_ ” the kid said. Slowly.

Jason’s jaw clenched. “The whole world thinks JT is dead, because JT died.”

“ _Don’t be obtuse._ ”

“I’m trying to find any possible alternative meaning to what you’re saying.” Finally, he managed to get his legs to move, and he swung over on his bike. "Because from my point? It looks like you’re suggesting JT shows up to serve a Planet's esteemed journalist the scoop of his life, and I had pegged you as someone too smart to think of putting _me_ on press duty.”

“ _We just need to find a reasonable excuse!_ ” Tim mewled pathetically.

Was he fucking dumb? _“_ Like what?! What’s the fucking excuse?! _”_

“ _I don’t know! But we have two days to cut him off before he gets to Nightwing!_ ”

“Why don’t you want Nightwing to know?”

Another sigh. So many of them, in one single call. “ _Because he’s a shitty liar when it comes to you and he’d manage to make B look even more guilty than he already does._ ”

That was, unfortunately, undeniably true.

“I know.”

Gotham was a well of sulphurous pitch; suffocative with her smell and thick and sticky in her air, turning every action, even the smallest, even just breathing, sluggish and dragged, a feat of immeasurable strength in itself. The shadows seemed to patch her every wall even in broad daylight, her lines curved like hooks from deep into the ground, like dark muddy roots, to the dark cover of pollution that hid the sky, looking like tree branches cracking and bending to catch and cage robins. People walked with their chins deep in the lapels of their coats and walked briskly regardless of their direction, their location and the time of day; all closer to the walls, all refusing eye contact. The few mothers always had a hand on their kids, gripping at their clothes or at their hands restlessly, spasmodically, as their eyes took in every inch, worried at every small motion.

Of course, this was Gotham in her deeper belly.

Around Wayne Tower, ladies walked in high heels and men wore expensive watches at their wrists, they laughed and let their kids trail behind them boringly, tapping on their phones or games. Around Wayne Tower, the street was clean and empty of used syringes or cigarette butts, nobody was begging and nobody was stealing. Emerald City, in all its glory. Clark had wondered if leaving Kansas was always meant to drag him there, short of glasses, to watch the skyscraper refuse to look down its nose on all the people who suffered just a half a mile radius out of it. Sure, Gotham figured atop of the States for donations to charities every year, most of the heavy lifting done by none other than Mr Wayne himself, but the desperation in her veins still corroded her like acid and all that money worked about as well as a bandaid on a gunshot.

Clark’s salary could only afford him so much when he didn't know for certain that the Planet would refund him, so he’d driven away from the shiny gem of the centre, through the streets of the not-too-horrible part all the way to where the houses looked like crooked teeth which just the right punch could knock out all at once, to the one minuscule motel that at least didn’t have a reputation for hosting super-villains’ monthly meetings on an average Tuesday and with no mention of rats or various diseases in its online reviews.

The ceiling in his room was cracked and the moquette suspiciously humid, but at least there was no blood on the entrance steps and they had an enclosed parking lot so that his chances of having the car stolen fell down to _only_ forty percent. The man at the counter had barely taken a look at his documents, but he'd gave him a long once-over and informed him that there would be an additional cost to pay if he brought anyone upstairs. A fee for each person. Honestly, Clark wasn't that much of hayseed but it had taken him a moment to realise the man had mistook him for a prostitute or an escort.

He’d checked into the rusty mirror as soon as he’d gotten in his room, but sure enough he was still wearing his flannel.

The mere thought of showering in that bathroom left him feeling filthier than before, so he’d just compromised with himself that if he truly couldn’t stomach it he’d wait for the middle of the night and then take a very brief flight to Metropolis, shower in his own apartment and return before human eye could pick him up. He prided himself in integrity, but he also had standards.

Instead, he plopped himself down on the bed to sigh deeply, then groaned when he realised that, if given the chance, he would easily waste another few hours thinking himself in circles and getting himself even more confused, so instead he sat up and dug his computer out of his bag.

He’d considered using his powers to spy on Wayne Manor, but Batman had been very clear on the matter — namely, _stay out of my_ city — and he’d need proof to accuse Wayne to his best friend. The rumours that the Batman had a secret benefactor were more of a known secret than a gossip, and he still hadn’t gotten anywhere trying to identify the man who’d left the tip.

At the moment, Bruce Wayne was in Chicago for a business trip, which was why he’d decided it was the best time to approach his son and try and get some info out of him. He’d carved himself a two days wait, to give Tim time to recover from the shock and gather the courage to speak out, if truly there was anything to be afraid of, but Wayne would be back by Wednesday and Clark would have a much shorter reach on his Gotham-resident children after that. He’d scheduled to meet the oldest, Grayson, in Blüdhaven if so happened, but he doubted the man would speak out now with him if he hadn’t done so for the sake of the _five_ siblings that had come after him. Cassandra Wayne never made a mystery of her dislike for the press and such, she'd only ever allowed three interviews in the time since her adoption and never revealing much. _The only private of the Wayne’s_ , people joked, but Clark couldn't really say he found it any funny at the moment.

That left him with Duke Thomas. The teenager had a very busy routine between school and extracurricular and was still kept rather away from the spotlight, didn’t compete in any sport and was not yet part of the family company, so Clark didn't really have an excuse to set up a meeting as a member of the press like he did with Tim. Waiting on an answer from the latter, he’d planned to try and stage and accidental meeting if he managed, but even the lowest of paparazzi knew that it was impossible to get past the Wayne’s formidable butler, an ex special soldier in the British army.

Honestly, he was just going to be wasting an whole lot of time until Wayne's return, he feared.

Of course, he could call in the big guns, if nothing worked out, but there was the small matter that he highly doubted Batman would be pleased of his unannounced presence in his city, so he was pushing that option as far as he felt comfortable doing. There were rumours about the involvement of Wayne with Gotham's rather nocturnal vigilante, but Clark had been his friend for too many years to doubt him in a case of child abuse. Batman would rather cut his own arm off than to let a kid stand in harm's way, even if that meant give up his main sponsor.

An old memory tickled at his brain, of B crouching in front of a cage in which some traffickers had held a young girl for around two weeks. Huge and stoic, his friend had knelt on the dirty floor and coaxed her out with endless patience and soft soothing words that clashed so bad with his voice modulator. As soon as she'd been convinced it was true, she was going home and she would not be hurt for trying to escape, she'd ran into his arms and refused to let go. Batman had gone through the rest of the area scouting and the consequent meeting with the local authorities with the girl wrapped around his torso, occasionally peeking out but mostly hidden under his cape and by his bulk.

It had been a bittersweet sight that had left Clark with a muffled heartache for the girl and sharp longing for the man.

He turned his head half into the duvet with a groan and shut his eyes closed forcefully.

This was _so_ not the time to let his personal unrequited crushes get ahold of his attention. Aside from being absolutely meaningless, considering that Batman was most likely married to his cowl already, it was downright selfish and even the few seconds he’d spent reminiscing fanned the flames of his already scorching guilt. The Wayne case, if it turned out to be a real story, would succeed where many powerful villains had failed and be the death of him.

To appease himself a bit, he tried to focus his hearing in the direction of Timothy Drake's apartment.

Because the kid didn’t live at the Manor when his father was away, and wasn't that suspicious in itself?

He was first assaulted by the sound of so many sirens blasting and as many people yelling. Tuning everything out to focus on one single sound was harder when he had so many louder ones closer to him, but he’d heard Tim’s voice clearly in the afternoon and his eidetic memory took a few instants to pick it out from the mess.

“Did he mention at what time he’ll be back?” he was asking.

“ _I fear not, Master Tim._ ” The answering voice had a slight British accent to it — the butler, probably— and came with the fuzzed quality of a phone. “ _He did assure me once again that he shall be back on Wednesday and complete the preparations for the gala this upcoming Friday but he did not offer any more details. With the final board meeting beginning at noon, I’d imagine that he may try and take the helicopter to return by roughly four in the afternoon._ ”

Clark frowned. Most definitely Tim’s interest in Bruce’s exact return was due to Clark’s sudden visit, but why not calling simply? If Bruce had done nothing, why not warn him of what had happened?

He couldn’t hear anything else. Tim just hummed silently before ending the call and after that Clark could only hear the tingling of ceramics, soft steps a door closing gently and finally an endless stream of key typing.

Clark shook his head and forced himself to stop listening. Hearing stuff that he wasn’t supposed to know was always tricky when he was running investigations; the smallest detail he wasn’t supposed to know but knew anyway, and people would start accusing him of bugging places, intercepting conversations and all other unsavoury ways that would compromise the whole story, ruin his entire career and potentially land him in jail. With a case of such high profile as this one, and Wayne’s squad of lawyers, he had to be even more careful than usual.

With just a bit of difficulty, he forced himself up and toward the bathroom, though he allowed himself the small relief of complaining out loud to himself for the whole time.

The thing with Jason was that he was unpredictable. His behaviour was erratic, and whereas some areas of his modus operandi were stone firm — don’t touch women, don’t touch children, deal to or through them and get your teeth kicked in, try and half look like you don’t despise the Joker from the bottom of your heart and get your fingers snapped — his methods tended to change like the wind. Most probably a result of being trained by the Greatest Detective: Jason knew all the tells to hide, all the inferences that could be made, all the paths that would be followed, and just straight up did the opposite. Not to mention, he was contrary at heart, and if he only thought he was being read through, he’d do the very opposite of what he’d planned or wanted to do just to shake his trail. Cooperation with him only worked on his terms, really.

Tim wasn’t sure whose terms this was happening on, so he wasn’t sure Jason would help either.

In his helpless wait for a response, he’d looked up their guy.

Clark Kent was, by all means, a goodie two shoes from Kansas. There was hardly any other way to describe him. From the tiny farm of his parents in Smallville, Kansas, he’d made his way to and through college on a scholarship, great marks though he was never class’ first, an excellent final dissertation on the importance of professional integrity in a world full of gossip rags and fake news. A single mention in his fourth year records: he’d been taken in by campus security after a fraternity party had gone, predictably, sour, but he’d been let go without repercussion when it had turned out he’d only come to the party after receiving a rather slurred message from a friend that claimed her drink might have been spiked. He’d attempted to get her out, and hadn’t been fast enough to leave before the cops show up. The blood results of the girl had been positive to GHB and he’d been discharged.

With dread down his spine, Tim had taken up a few of Bruce’s interviews from occasions in which he’d let the press catch him at events and he’d searched for Kent in the sea of reporters. The man was astonishingly good at ducking out of frame so often it was irritating, and he mostly partnered up with Lois Lane, Pulitzer-winner crown-jewel of the Daily Planet, so she tended to obscure him totally with her presence. In those few scraps of footage in which Tim managed to find him, Kent was always hunched as he’d been in his office, meekly letting other far smaller people fail to manoeuvre his bulk rather than physically pushing through.

Five weeks ago, at the inauguration of Metropolis’ new Community Centre, Kent hadn’t bothered hiding from a camera as he glared a storm to Bruce from behind the railing. Ten days later, he’d purchased a ticket to Ethiopia and he’d spent two weeks there. He’d only published a puff piece since he’d been back.

The bad news of all this was, he was working on something, and Tim knew exactly what. An exposé against Gotham’s Favourite Problem Child, her Prince, would have to be downright bulletproof before any paper would dare to publish it; and every journalist knew well of the Wayne’s legal department.

The good news, on the other hand, was that the plane tickets had been purchased with Clark Kent’s personal savings, not by the Planet, which gave them one tiny hope that he’d not shared his findings with anyone else yet. Biding his time? Checking the truth of his guesses before taking his stance? Either way, it opened a bit more space to manoeuvre in.

Now, to find out how he got his hands on those reports.

Bruce had been meticulous to hide the one from Dire Daua. He’d known of it for sure, no way in Hell he’d missed that, but he’d taken special care to hide it to the point Tim himself hadn’t known of its existence until now.

Could it be that somehow an up-and-coming reporter from Metropolis just found it on accident? Yeah, sure, of course, and Dick's mullet had been attractive back in the days.

Tim stifled a yawn, and dragged his hands heavily down his face to try and regain some sensibility in the facial muscles.

Three hours of digging hadn't led to anything. Kent's computer at the Planet was clean-ish. He'd started looking into Bruce six weeks prior and the first searches had been already heavily oriented toward Jason, his death and his appearances with Bruce, which meant he already knew what to look for. Only later he'd dug into Dick, Tim, Cass and Damian. There was no copy of the folder on the computer though, or in the mail, or on any form of cloud storage Tim had tracked to him. He didn't seem to own a portable computer of his own, just the Planet issued one, judging by the timetable of use and the amount of funny puppies videos he watched so that seemed to be a dead end.

The coffee he’d made for himself had gone cold. Disgusting.

“How did this fucking happen?!”

Tim yelped.

Jason sent him _a look_. He was leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, in his usual Red Hood attire, though he’d had at least the decency to take off the helmet and domino in the house. He was looking rather disgruntled.

Tim could understand, but also, he didn’t want to. “Couldn’t you have just, you know, called? Like anybody else?”

“You called me.”

“And you hung up on me!”

Jason shrugged. “I didn’t have anything else to say.”

Tim chewed hard on his tongue to force the words back down in his throat.

Antagonising people, especially people he was supposed to work with, was Jason’s thing. It was a rule he applied strictly to family, and only slightly less so with friends; the only exception being Bizarro, for whom Jason would bowl over and do a quadruple somersault without a net nor so much as a complaint. Stephanie had a running hypothesis, now mostly shared by all other members of the family, that it was an instinctual defence mechanism put in place to give himself a semblance of distance, because he was still afraid to care and be let down again. Or something, Tim hadn’t paid too much time back then because he was too busy cutting nicotine chewing gum out of his hair.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he said, half for the present and half for the past, then he turned the screen of his PC back on because fighting with Jason was just about as useful as trying to dry up a flooded floor with a single Kleenex. ”I checked out Kent.”

“Yeah, I did it too. Where did he fucking came from, uh?”

“Kansas,” Tim replied curtly, and didn’t even complain too much when Jason cuffed him on the nape as he passed him by on his way to the kitchen. Mostly, he kept quiet because he was acutely aware of the contents of his fridge and cupboards at the moment. “He’s so fucking… _fair_. It’s annoying.”

“And that’s how you know daddy bats fucked you up for good,” Jason grumbled. Tim was staring adamantly at his computer and ignored all the tingling and clacking noises from the kitchen at his back. “Bitch, you live like this?”

“You haven’t been hanging out at Dick’s recently, have you?”

“Of course not, I don’t want to get fucking tetanus! All the shots in the world couldn’t save a soul from that health hazard.” Tim let him rant. Jason had a dramatic flair a mile long, three years experience as a theatre kid, and a frankly unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare that Alfred did all but try to curb. Not to mention, Jason needed to move as he vented and some unconscious part of him always ended up cooking as he did so. Tim had seen Cassandra rile him up in a monologue about the absurdity of grey taxis, once, just to have him present her a dish of lamb with potatoes and some other shit that made her grin for a week.

Tim was only slightly bitter about not being allowed to taste that.

The blinking warning of his PC low battery brought him back harshly in his skin, and he groaned again. “We’re in deep shit.”

“You don’t say.” Jason emerged from the kitchen with a frown on his face and a bowl in his arms, rapidly mixing whatever he’d managed to scrounge up. “B’s out of town, ain’t he?”

“I bet that’s why Kent struck now,“ Tim nodded. “It’s infuriating how careful and well-intended he is. It’d be so much easier to just chase him out of town if he were another common villain.”

Whatever Jason was cooking, smelled like cinnamon, “Yeah, you read the articles on Luthor?” He had. _Scathing_ would be an euphemism. “So, what’s the big plan?”

This time, Tim turned the stool he was on so he could face his brother. Because that’s what Jason was, at the heart of it, uh? “You’re going to help out?”

Eyes that used to be blue shone green for the briefest instant. “Undecided.”

“Okay,” he said, because it was better than no, anyway. “I changed my mind, by the way. We’ll need to get the others into this.”

Firstly, Jason cussed in Spanish. He kept it up for a while as he returned to the kitchen and poured angry spoonfuls of his batter into a pan on the fires. The sound of sizzling oil made Tim flinch instinctively, but the smell that filled the room immediately after soothed him down. The stream of profanities kept on for the whole minute it took the things to cook, and then Jason had a handful of pockets of fried cinnamon bread in a plate that he threw not too carefully on the counter by Tim’s side.

“I so fucking hate you,” he hissed, and shoved one of the things, whole and burning, in his mouth.

Tim grinned and took a snack for himself.

Lois was monitoring him like a hawk. Clark strived not to let it get on his nerves, mostly because he knew she was only trying to look out for him, because she cared, always did, but _still_.

“I’m okay.”

“ _I’m not saying you aren’t, Smallville,_ ” she told him curtly. Through the phone, he could hear her typing, sliding on her chair from one end to the other of her cubicle and occasionally letting out a shout for Jimmy to get his ass to her. She'd called twice already, so Jimmy better hurry up before she went to look for him. “ _But you keeping secrets with me about your stories? That’s shady as fuck._ ”

“Nobody else in the whole office has ever called me shady.”

“ _Nobody else in the whole office won a Pulitzer either. You were trying to make a point?_ ”

He huffed, but let himself fall back on his mattress. He _heard_ whatever bug in it scurry away and immediately returned to his feet. “I’m not keeping secrets. I’m verifying sources before throwing accusations without evidence.”

“ _Ah, the joys of anonymous tips._ ”

“Yes, please, keep laughing at my misery.”

“ _I will, as soon as I’m done skinning Jimmy._ ” The chair rolled away from the desk. “ _You being in Gotham isn't going to get your friend’s panties in a twist?_ ”

Clark pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lois.”

“ _What? You telling me you finally fessed up and said the magic five words,_ I wanna be your friend _?_ ”

Mumbling, “I didn’t tell him.”

“ _It was sarcastic, Smallv—_ ”

“That I’m here.”

For a moment, Lois just hummed. “ _I’m trying to understand your angle, here, but I’m confused—_ ”

“I don’t have an angle.”

“ _—Are you aiming for an hate-fuck or is this some extremely convoluted way of communication that only men who like to wear their trunks over their leggings can understand?_ ”

“They’re not leggings!”

“ _Thighs. Leotard. Stretchy yoga pants. Call them what you want, Clark, you’re not pathetically deflecting me from the fact that you very much did not deny the hate-fuck wishing part._ ”

Clark’s brain ran faster than light. He couldn’t stop it from conjuring it, the dream in full-HD, bright colours and tactile sensations as well, perfect to the most minuscule detail.

B smelled of leather and grenade powder at all times, occasionally of motor oil as well. It reminded Clark of the afternoons spent with Lana and Pete by his dad’s garage, and the stolen glances at the guy who helped him out seasonally and dug his way elbow-deep into the trucks and tractors of the locals. But Jared was a wiry thing compared to the massive size of the Batman, and Clark could easily picture the strength behind his grip, the power of those thighs, the sharp cut of the jaw.

Hateful, B would push him in a wall, careless of Clark’s superior strength, or maybe just aware that he would not oppose any form of resistance. He would grab Clark’s thighs and spread them open to both sides of his waist, hold him up like he weighted nothing in his arms, and push himself against him in a punishing grind. He would bite at the skin of Clark’s throat, even knowing he couldn’t bruise or rupture it. The unbreakable feel of it would annoy him and he would growl in Clark’s ear, the very same sound of annoyance he made whenever Hal pissed him off, and the memory of such a deep, forceful sound made him shiver on his feet.

“ _Jesus, Smallville!_ ”

Clark jerked. “What!”

“ _Oh my God, you were thinking of it!_ ”

“I wasn’t—”

“ _Yes, you were, you terrible, awful liar. I can’t believe you went on a tangent like that on me. Wow. Unbelievable._ ”

Clark closed his eyes to will the warmth in his belly to just simmer down. “Jimmy is at the editors’ floor, trying to get a date out of Gloria.”

“ _Underhanded, Smallville, but I’ll allow it this time because I really need those pictures yesterday. Don’t think you’re off the hook, though!_ ”

“Bye, Lois,” and he hurriedly hung up before she decided she could hound both him and Jimmy at the same time. He groaned.

In face of his recent humiliations, bed bugs didn't seem too bad. He flopped down on the mattress again.

The aimless wait for Tim to make a decision was definitely wearing him out. He’d caught himself from eavesdropping on the kid thrice already just since he woke up today and it was just — he strenuously lifted his head from the pillow just enough to check on the alarm clock on his bedside table, and let it fell again with a deep sigh — twenty-seven past ten in the morning. He’d been awake since five.

He considered calling Ma’, but he knew if he did he’d end up spilling his guts, which would lead to giving in on his need to talk with Jon and then taking off from Gotham to fly to visit his kids when Connor would unavoidably refuse to talk to him. Every second he spent revising Jason Todd’s file he felt worse about his relationship with his own son. Already, he had a list of things to do together, places to bring him to, food to make him swear to never tell Ma’ they’d eaten. It was in his pocket.

Gotham was a cesspool, but it made the best chilli-dogs Clark’s ever had, so he’d pulled the list out to add them to it when a knock came to his door.

Instinct took over him and he x-rayed the door the moment his head lifted to it, without thinking. Good thing he did, though, because he chocked on himself when he was met with the cold eyes of Timothy Drake.

Clark jumped to his feet. Considered straightening himself out, trying to get a more approachable and protective aura, but technically he wasn’t supposed to know who was behind the door so appearing too ready for the meeting would be suspicious. The kid was tapping a foot insistently on the floor as well, so he gave in and just went to open the door.

He only had to feign his first reaction, but the surprise in his voice as he asked, “Tim?,” was real all way through.

Tim arched a brow at him. “I thought you invited me.”

Technically, he had, but Clark had been expecting something more careful, more subdue, even in his most optimist visions. A call, at the very least. “I, uh, I did?”

Tim walked in. Past him and without apologies, he took stance in the middle of the room and glanced around briefly. Clark hoped he didn’t notice the hole in the corner that had probably been made by rats, but the minuscule pinch at the kid’s lips didn’t leave him much optimism. “You went for the scenic route,” he commented. “I suppose the advertising offered the true Gotham experience?”

Clark snorted. “Something like that,” he played along, but his mouth fell slack in sombreness soon enough. Tim was funny, charming as only the most navigated socialites could be, but it was all a smoke curtain to hide into. “Why are you here?”

Tim arched a brow. “Not for what you think.”

“Tim—”

“Bruce is my father in more ways than my biological one was for most of my life,” the kid interrupted him, voice accompanied with a firm gesture of the hand to stop him from interfering. "Don't get me wrong, he’s not a perfect father, far from it. You’ve met him, he’s— _difficult._ ”

Difficult would be an understatement. For all the press and public loved him for his foolish, dumb behaviour, investors and businessmen alike had a tendency to despise his inability to focus, and journalists who looked for anything deeper than his latest squeeze or his eccentricities were met with a wall of bored disinterest or plain contrariness. Cat Grant had written once in an article that the then-latest Katy Perry hit “Like A Girl” had been inspired by the billionaire himself. _You change your mind like a girl changes clothes._

Tim shook his head to himself. “Brucie’s life has been a swing, from the lowest of losses to the highest victories. His persona developed much similarly.”

“And how is he at his lowest?” Clark asked, striving to keep the anger out of his voice. “Tim, the carrot-stick method is not a suitable way to raise children.”

“You keep putting words in my mouth, reporter,” Tim replied, this time more firmly. “I’m going to be clear so you know what to write in your article: Bruce Wayne does not hit his kids.”

He spoke firmly, seriously, and truly his expression was so open and steady Clark himself could have believed him. If only his heart didn’t stutter on those last words. “Why didn’t you just tell me so when I came to your office, then?”

This time, there was no missing the dangerous flash on Tim’s face. The kid turned and, dressed as he was in his expensive suit, necktie properly sitting on his chest, shoulders squared, he looked like threat personified. Somehow, he was more muscular and less noodle-nerdy than Clark had first assumed.

“You ambushed me—,” he spoke slowly, “—with graphic pictures of my brother’s mangled corpse.”

Clark felt his cheek heating slightly as the truth in the accusation allowed the guilt in his head to roar loud again. “I was looking for a reaction,” he admitted. “I’m sorry for pushing that on you without warning.”

A scoff, a wave of the hand. “It’s no matter, now,” Tim shrugged. “Nor it is the reason I am here now, actually.”

“Uh?” For a moment, Tim glanced at the room again, but then his eyes fell on the luggage sitting on the armchair and he walked up to it. To Clark’s bafflement, he opened it and started sorting through the clothes. “Hey!”

“There will be a gala held at the Manor in four days,” Tim began conversationally, and completely ignoring his protests. “Bruce will be back by then and all of my siblings should be able to attend. I had you added to the guest list.”

Clark remembered the butler’s mention of the Friday event, of course, but he blinked all the same at the words. Most Wayne events were rather grandiose and relatively open, but the Gala host annually at Wayne Manor in honour of Thomas and Martha served to gather funds for the Martha Foundation and capitalised the most on its incredible exclusivity. Only the richest and most famous were invited to attend and the honour itself made all the donors so much more generous.

The press was, categorically, not allowed inside the Manor’s grounds on such occasion. It took Clark’s alien brain embarrassingly long to process that had just been invited to attend.

“If this is supposed to be some form of bribery—” Clark strived to say, but Tim’s expression remained unimpressed.

“As a friend of mine,” he specified, rather coldly. “Not officially. Completely off record.” At Clark’s frown, he spread his arms. “Your chance to check on us all together, Mr Kent. Corner Bruce and grill him up. Ask whatever you want to any and all of my siblings. I would suggest you stay away from Damian, though. He bites.”

_Bites?_

“Cassandra doesn’t much like to speak, especially with strangers, so if you don’t know ASL I suggest you stick with me before approaching her. Dick will probably approach you first, he’s an handful and you’re on your own to deal with him until I’ve had a good few glasses of wine in me.” Clark watched, helplessly, as Tim scrunched up his nose at his best suit. “You’re going to need better than this, Kent. Much better.”

“Assuming I even come—,” he said, forcefully pushing all annoyance out of his tone, “—what’s that supposed to prove?” Wayne was dumb, but not so dumb that he’d hit a kid during his own party, with guests all over the place.

Tim threw his suit on the bed. “Are you familiar with abuse victims, Kent?”

 _Yes, too much._ “Some.”

“Then I trust you’d see the signs if this were the case, would you agree?” The kid grinned and this time, this time there was something awfully sharp in the shape of his teeth, the light reflecting on their start-perfect whiteness. Clark suppressed a flinch. “We’re each our own brand of crazy, but we’re family.”

Something in the sentence tickled at Clark’s memory, but without any insight coming to him. He’d heard it before, or heard something similar perhaps? It had a familiar quality to it, though not be immediately recognisable.

Tim sighed deeply and fixed the lapels of his open coat. He was wearing gloves, Clark finally noticed, of expensive leather. No fingerprints anywhere. “If you can’t do anything about the suit, I’ll have Alfred book you an appointment to have one fitted at Bruce’s tailor. We’ll be taking care of the bill, of course.”

“ _This_ really looks like bribery.”

“Mr Kent.” Tim stopped in front the door, fingers on the handle. “I knew Jason. We’d met at galas before, the only two rich brats not to brag about their latest polo calf. I cared for him as a friend, even if he died before I got the chance to call him brother. He was an amazing kid, in a way I _know_ you cannot even begin to comprehend.” Older, so older than the bones he sat in, he looked Clark in the eyes with unreadable expression. “Bruce took me in before he’d truly had the chance to elaborate the loss, because he didn’t have much choice, and I’ve seen him at the worst of his grieving. Losing Jason _destroyed him_. I will not let you dredge up that pain again, any way I have to.”

Tim left the room colder than he’d found it, and so much stiller. Clark had no idea for how long he stopped breathing, but the expensive car he’d come in came to life in his ear and he jolted.

Had he just been— What that a threat? Did Timothy Drake Wayne just walked into his room with an invitation for the most exclusive mundane event of the whole State and a offhanded death threat? Well, maybe not deadly, nobody spoke of death, and it’s not like it'd work on Clark anyway, of course, but _still_.

Clark sat heavily on the bed, and after a moment put his head in his hands to groan loudly into his palms.

Because Tim had two dental prothesis in place of as many missing teeth his mouth.

The headache had been mounting since the day before, but Bruce had naively chalked it up to business meetings and businessmen he’d have much rather avoid. He should have honestly known better.

“Kal,” he spoke very slowly, not because he doubted his friend would hear him over the roaring sound of the Maserati — and he was driving this one specific car rather loudly with the explicit intent of letting the alien _know_ it was a Maserati —, but because the pounding in his forehead might have been responsible for the words he just heard. It could have been. Bruce had been distracted making sure the portable voice modulator was on and working properly, maybe he’d just misheard. Maybe there was no reason to get mad. Yet. “What does it mean, _I might be in Gotham_.”

Kal immediately fessed up. “ _Alright, I definitely am in Gotham, but I swear I have a good reason!_ ”

“Which would be?”

“ _…One I cannot tell you?_ ”

Bruce’s jaw worked as he struggled not to just clench his teeth to the point of shattering them. He left Gotham _one time_. “Kal.”

“ _I haven’t done anything, I swear! I didn’t so much as stop a mugging, Scout’s honour!_ ”

He almost ran a red light, too busy rolling his eyes and sighing deeply, and he had to hit the brakes hard to stop. The cuss in his throat would have made Jason proud and Alfred ashamed of him, so he reviewed in silently in his mind and kept it for himself. “Were you even really in the Scouts?”

“ _… No?_ ”

For fuck's sake. “Kal, whatever you might be calling for—”

“ _I need a suit._ ”

Now, Bruce frowned. “Last time I tested it, your suit was just about as invulnerable as you. If something got through it-”

“ _Oh, no, no, not that kind of suit! Just, you know. A suit._ ”

Bruce stared at the traffic light. If he turned left, he’d be in the parking lot of Wayne Enterprises Chicago Branch HeadQuarters and he could just pretend he had to go and hang up on whatever foolishness Kal had gotten himself involved with. Though, that would also mean abandoning Gotham to whatever foolishness Kal had gotten himself involved with.

He turned right resenting himself fiercely for it. “A suit.”

“ _Yeah, like…pants, shirt, jacket, necktie, I know you use them lots for your undercover work, Wonder Woman said you two went on a mission a while ago and that you’ve got great taste, and also you’re, like, the only person I know who’s roughly the same build as me and, really, whatever you can lend me is absolutely fine! I’m just really in a pinch and it’s difficult to find shops that sell elegant stuff in my size, and–_ ”

“You tried to buy a suit off the rack.”

A note of offence picked from the other end of the call. “ _What’s wrong with a suit off the rack?_ ”

“Kal.”

“ _Can you stop just saying my name like I murdered your puppy and please, please, help me out? Come on, B! I thought we were friends!_ ”

“Similar as our bodies might be, suits need to be form-fitted.”

“ _I don’t need a form-fitted suit, I will only ever use it once! And I’ll give it back, I swear!_ ”

“This is a nightmare.”

“ _I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t in a real hurry! I need it, like, tonight?_ ”

“Is there any reason as to why you’re asking me for a suit with a mere—” he checked the clock on the car dashboard. Luckily, Brucie Wayne was not renowned among his investors and directors for his punctuality, “—tenish hour forewarning, and not just wear one you own already?” Then, a thought. “Because you do own a suit, right, Kal.”

“ _Well, it’s not like the Fortress of Solitude has a dress code._ ”

Great. “Brilliant.” Dare he say, what-the-fuck-y. “If I get you a goddamn suit will you get your ass out of my city?”

“ _About that…_ ”

“No.”

“ _Just a few more days! I promise, a week tops!, and then I’ll be out of your hair! You won’t even notice I’m here!_ ”

“You are the member of the JL with the highest bill for collateral damages.”

“ _First, that hurt. Second, I am not here on a mission, I just told you that! Can’t you just trust me?_ ”

“No.”

“ _That’s bull, I literally swept you out of air mid-fall ten days ago. And we both know you jumped because you knew I’d catch you._ ”

“I jump off buildings every night, Kal. Don’t start feeling too special.”

“ _Ouch_.” The smile in the voice brought Bruce back to reality. Bantering with Kal came always too easy, too familiar, a distraction in itself. He could feel his shoulders so much laxer than they had been when he’d first answered the call, and the muscles of his cheek hurt with the effort of suppressing a smirk. He turned the car around an obelisk and drove back in the direction of the WE building. “ _So, do I get the suit and the permission?_ ”

Bruce held back a sigh. “Do you need shoes as well?”

“ _Uh, I thought I’d just wear this pair I have?_ ”

“I’ll get you shoes as well,” Heaven forbade Kal puts some Kryptonian primary-colored weird oddity with the Ralph Laurent Bruce was already mentally tinkering with to fit him best. “And you’ll get out of my city by Sunday.”

“ _Deal!_ ” Kal’s voice reached happily into Bruce’s mind and conjured the picture of such open smile, gentle beyond all the horrors he’d seen as a hero. “ _I’ll owe you one, B._ ”

“I’ll have the suit left for you on the rooftop of the GCPD building,” he declared, ignoring the claim of debt he was never going to reclaim anyway. The car slid elegantly in the parking spot reserved for him. “Can you get there without being spotted and broadcasting to the whole world that you’re trespassing in my territory?”

“ _I will be very subtle and nobody will notice me._ ”

As if it were possible. Kal had a way to commandeer all the attention to himself, no matter what. It wasn’t the colours or the flight or the powers, it wasn’t even the smile or the muscles or the built; it was just this way he had of making you feel like his whole attention was on you at all times, no matter how many people were in the room, the way he looked you in the eyes and the passion in which he spoke. Kal was the last good person on Earth if there ever were one, and Bruce hated how much he’d grown to need that kind of optimism and truth and simplicity in his life.

“Whatever,” and he hung up. He took a moment to breath and send Tim a message about an impromptu special delivery he needed him to do, no questions allowed, and then he moved on.

Nobody could ever overlook Kal-El, that was a given.

Tim was so going to have a long chat with Bruce when this was over.

First of all, Robin was _not_ Batman’s factotum at his beck and call twenty-four seven. Some of them had actual work to do, work that did not revolve around making favours and doe-eyes at the Man of Steel but rather around keeping his overestimated furry butt out of jail. Secondly, if that were even the case, Tim was no longer Robin, if everybody had conveniently forgotten about that stint with Dick and the brat from hell. Next time Bruce needed someone to deliver a packaged suit to the GCPD, he could try ask Damian, see how _that_ worked out. Tim would make popcorns himself, just for the show.

Of course, it was raining cats and dogs in Gotham, and Tim had to add this deviation on top of his usual patrol route, which covered Dick’s area as well since he was still in Bludhaven, and with Damian yapping in his comm about being stuck with monitor duty, who cares that B was the one to ground him.

Yes, Tim was going to file an official complaint as soon as he was done getting the reporter out of Bruce’s hair. Any day now.

He parked the bike with less care than he usually would, and the tires squelched loudly against the pavement. His suit was dripping the probably corrosive rain all over the place, which meant Alfred would have his head if he followed on his dreams of food and bedrest and collapsing as he were. So, shower it was.

Not that it was bad. Bruce’s obsession with top-form meant he had all the showers in the cave at the best water pressure and installed with massaging heads for the post-patrol sore muscles. It was heavenly and Tim emerged feeling a bit more of a person than before.

Then he spotted Jason tinkering under the Batmobile.

“If you’re planting another bomb, I’ll tell Alfred,” he declared, rather flatly. “I’m _done_ for the night. Bring your bullshit elsewhere.”

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Duke taking stock of the med–bay supplies. And rolling his eyes. He had it easy, Jason never tried to explode him.

“You’re not fun,” came the voice from under the car. Jason followed suit, pulling himself out and getting back on his feet with ease. Too nonchalantly, for Tim’s taste. “I’m just spying on the new additions. I’m thinking of engineering something new for myself.”

Yeah, _no_. “Ask Roy.”

“Roy rigs everything he makes to explode, but nice try, Timbo.”

Tim sighed. Jason being in the cave was a serious matter, he still tried his damn best to avoid it in any occasion other than the most urgent of urgencies, so there had to be something boiling under the surface.

Tinkering with the car meant hand movement meant restlessness meant Jason was stressed as fuck. And Stressed Jason was also close friends with Trigger-Happy Jason.

The only small mercy was that the chair at the Batcomputer – Bruce’s chair, the only comfy chair – was free and Tim slumped on it. “Where’s Damian?”

“Alf came to get him when his screeches of outrage at Jason’s break-in reached the decibel of a sledgehammer,” Duke weighted in as he approached them. “How was patrol?”

“Good. Why did you break in? Bruce gave you the entrance codes.”

Jason shrugged. “I feel like we’ve had a very similar conversation already, dude.”

Tim groaned.

“Is there a case you two are working on that we don’t know about?” Duke asked. He was in slacks, a sweater and the bandages on his arm and chest from his latest run in with Poison Ivy that had landed him on the bench for the night. “Because I’ll let you know literally everybody is upstairs.”

“Why’s everybody here?”

“Cass’ plane landed at ten, Dick took the opportunity to leave Bludhäven to get her at the airport and Steph stopped by to say hello.” Duke seemed to think about it, then shrugged. “I mean, Babs is not here here, but is there any place on this Earth where she isn’t logged into?”

Tim heard a chime come from the computer behind him and turned, just to find a green screen. _What do you think?_ , it said. He shook his head. “Very funny, Oracle.”

The message remained where it was.

Duke shrugged. “Alright, so?”

“Timbo didn’t tell you?” Jason piped in. “B’s got a tail.”

“Tail?”

“A shiny reporter from Smallville, Kansas, here to question his rather subpar parental skills. Oh, he’s got my autopsy report on him, by the way.”

There were days when Tim really, truly, missed being an only child. To think he’d tried to ask Janet for a brother, once. “I thought we agreed I would tell them.”

“You agreed. I never listen.”

“He’s got what?!”

The need for that talk to have with Bruce was coming back forcefully enough to give Tim a migraine. “It’s not a big deal–”

“Not a big deal?!”

“What’s not a big deal? Oh, Tim! You’re back! Come up here, Cass got us all presents from Hong Kong!”

“Yeah, Tim,” Jason grinned, apparently all gleeful. “Let’s join the others upstairs, why don’t we?”

“How did he get that?!”

Tim closed his eyes. “Duke, can you not.”

Duke, apparently, couldn’t _not_. “How are you planning on dealing with this?!”

“I already dealt with this!” Tim hissed, through clenched teeth.

“Wow,” Jason drawled. “Must have missed that.”

Dick had climbed the stairs down, which actually meant he’d jumped from handrail to handrail until he landed softly on the floor. By the sounds of it, Steph, Cass and Damian were on their way down as well. Maybe even Alfred, what better than a family reunion in the cave, after all?

Dick glanced between the three of them. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing to worry your big bird’s brain over, Dickface.” Jason’s smile grew even more. It was a trait he’d gotten from the Joker, though no-one would ever dare to tell him that. When stress piled up on him and he felt cornered, he dialled up the aggression and unleashed it violently on everyone he could, friend or foe they might be. “Timmy Tammy here has _dealt with it._ ”

Timmy Tammy was also very tired.

“Yes, I dealt with it. I dealt with it, as I dealt with all other shit in this family, starting right from when you got yourself blown up to Bruce’s latest shit five minutes ago, and you owe to shut the fuck up, because, you know what?” He went to his feet without realising, all in Jason’s space like he wasn’t minimally afraid of it. “ _You_ weren't there, _Dick_ wasn't there, _none of you was there_ , it was just me and Alfred to watch Bruce destroy himself night after night! So fuck you for thinking you know better than me how to deal with this, because guess what?! When you were out there playing the angry bird and roaring vengeance, I was dealing with it!”

Jason’s eyes had a ring of green to the edge of the pupil that didn’t use to be there before Ethiopia. It shone, dangerous, but his jaw remained clamped shut. It took Tim too long to notice there was a hand wrapped around Jason’s wrist, holding him back; by the time he did, Cass’ other was holding his jaw steadily and turning his face to her.

She stared into his eyes for a long minute. “Not angry,” she corrected him. “Scared.”

Tim deflated under that mere word. An hysteric thought passed his mind, that the bats true kryptonite was nothing but admittance of feelings, even as he plopped back down in his chair. In a low voice, he admitted, “yes.”

Cass nodded. “Dummy.”

“Hey.”

“ _All_ dummies.” Jason rolled his eyes under her pointed look. “Family business, family deals.”

Duke smiled feebly at her. “That makes it sound like we’re mobsters.”

“I mean–” Jason stared, but Dick slapped his hand on his mouth.

“What if–” he interjected, getting the other in a headlock, “–you guys caught us up with what’s going on, instead of just _dealing with it_ on your own?”

Dick smiled. It was the smile that promised you things would be going the way he wanted to, whether you liked it or not.

Steph wrapped her arm around Tim’s shoulders and nodded against his temple. “Please, _yes_. I’m dying to get in on the action of whatever shit we got ourselves into, this time,” she said. She might have been sarcastic, but Tim found it hard to tell.

Catching them all up was _not_ fun.

“How did you conjure the idea that not warning–”

“What is the name of the impudent? Drake, I demand you tell me the name of this slug who dares slandering father’s name!”

Cass’ glare was impressive, but she latched onto Duke’s arm and he nodded at her, though he still looked rather pale. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“I searched the guy’s room,” Jason piped in. The hand sprawled on Dick’s face was only partially in order to cover his mouth and stop whatever torrent of disappointed scolding the man was trying to upkeep; mostly, it was plain payback. “He’s only got one PC, that Tim searched already, and he brought no weapon. I can’t tell if he’s insanely fearless or just downright stupid.”

Tim arched a brow. “The Wayne name is not connected to any shady business, if you don’t count the rumours about our involvement with Batman.”

“I mean, we’re billionaires,” Duke shrugged. “It’s highly probable that someone in Bruce’s genealogical tree was not as much of a fan of honesty and integrity as he is.”

“And for as much as I agree with the only reasonable person here–,” Steph interjected, “–I’d like to know what’s the plan to deal with this. Not that I’m going to get involved, I just live for the drama.”

Tim whined. “I thought you liked me.”

Steph smiled at him, but didn’t answer. Cass wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Traitors, both of them.

Jason had flopped himself to sit crosslegged on the floor at some point during the recall, and he laid back on his palms with a long drawn sigh. “I vote we don’t say shit and just push B on the reporter at the Gala, let him try the whole flirty Brucie routine on the dude. It’d be _awesome_.”

Stephanie arched a brow in his direction. “Too bad your vote doesn’t count.”

“Why the fuck not? This is about me!”

“Because you’re dead, duh.”

Jason brought a hand to his chest. “That’s cold, Blondie. Below the fucking belt.”

“The plan—,” Tim slipped in, before the argument could escalate, “—is to not do anything. Let Kent come over and see we are just an average family that gets along and sticks together, not a real life game of Clue.”

He felt their eyes on him as his brain caught up with what he just said.

“Yeah, right, either you don’t do anything _or_ you play normal, pick one, kiddo,” Jason huffed.

Damian raised his eyes to the ceiling with a long suffering sigh. “Pretending to get along with the lot of you will require a skillset in acting only the best of performers could achieve.”

“I’m normal,” Duke piped in. “Really. I’m totally the most normal here. Everything else sounds like a you problem, guys.” He crossed his arms, then, quietly, “This is gonna mess up with the hearing for my adoption, isn’t it.”

“It won’t,” Dick assured him, confidently and absolutely with no foundation to his claim. Tim watched him hug Duke close to his side, then moved his eyes to meet Jason’s and Cass’. They both returned his somber stare. “We’ll convince this dude there’s nothing worth digging for, here, you’ll see.”

“We need to show him another target,” Damian added. “He still knows too many details about Todd’s departure—”

“That was oddly cold.”

Damian ignored him, “—and convincing him that father had nothing to do with it will not make him stop investigating.”

He was right, but Tim was likely to sooner chug a mug of glass shards than say it out loud. “One thing at time,” he offered instead. “We just need to plant the doubt, now. We can smooth out his investigations later.” To Dick, he added. “He had a trail to the papers from when social services took you from Bruce, in his computer. I don’t think he managed to see them, yet, or that he’ll be able to, but just a heads-up.”

His oldest brother hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll see if I can get a copy of the report for myself. Social Services found nothing and gave me back to B. It could work on our favour to let him read it.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

“So, this is the plan?” Steph blinked at them, looking rather confused. “Go all _Smile and Wave_ on the reporter like _Madagascar_ Penguins?”

Cass smiled brightly. “I like _Madagascar_.” Tim knew the light in her eyes. It meant, _I want a movie night and all of you will take part to it whether you like it or not_. He guessed there were worse movies to be stuck watching.

“Great,” Steph clicked her tongue suspiciously. “And that’s it?”

“We could always kill him and hide the corpse, if you’d prefer, Blondie.”

“Jay.”

Tim groaned. Struggling, he forced himself up on his feet and stumbled through the wall of siblings in front of him. “You guys keep bickering, I’m going to sleep.”

“Since _when_?”

 _Since four days ago, I guess_ , he considered saying, but that would get Dick on his case, which would get Alfred on his case, which would eventually get Bruce on his case as well, and then he’d be benched as well and stuck in the cave all night with the insufferable brat.

No thanks.

He left them to their own squabbles and trudged up the stairs feeling his years turning into decades in his joints. A screech of pain reached him by the time he was almost into the house, but he elected to ignore it and just closed the clock behind himself.

They really had this _play normal_ thing in the bag, didn’t they?

Bruce slumped on the bed of his hotel and sighed deeply. Finally, tomorrow he would get to go back to Gotham, and he was counting the hours to being back in the Manor, but at the same time Alfred dutifully informed him that all of his children were currently reunited under such roof. Usually, he needed time to mentally prepare for that. Too many triggers, too much hurt, a web of threats to walk on carefully.

It was rather fitting that Dick, an acrobat at heart, seemed to be the one most at ease with keeping his balance among all.

Therefore, he was the night to empty his mind of his most recent worries, to ease back down into a relaxed state from which to try and reach out to each of them. Spread Eagle on the bed, slacks and shirt still on but the rest of his suit scattered around his room, he counted his breaths until they finally came out of his lips feeling less shredded and more smooth.

Dealing with the investors always left him feeling like selling everything, giving away each single penny he owned and just disappear. Stop existing completely.

Leslie said that last line of thought in particular was a shade of worrying he should have checked by a psychologist, but he’d always found himself much more at ease with pretending it hadn’t been there to begin with.

And then there was Kal.

Bruce wouldn’t admit it to the man, but the afternoon call had done better for his mind than three hours of meditation had managed.

Kal never saw Batman as a cold-hearted wench or a frigid soldier, he didn’t connect him with Bruce Wayne the walking wallet and dumb bitch. He called him _friend_ like it was the easiest word in the world, not a feat in itself, and laughed at his jokes rather than awkwardly chuckling wondering whether he was serious or not. The whole dark brooding persona never kept him at bay, he just walked straight into the bubble of personal space Bruce had built around himself and _touched_. God, he touched.

At any given time, for all reasons and none at all, Kal touched him. His shoulder, his wrist, his back, he hugged him, he carried him, he whined and bugged until Bruce gave up and returned a handshake or relaxed under the arm around his neck. He’d taken over the duty of helping with Batman’s injuries every time he caught sight or smell of a wound on him, and he’d never missed a catch in fifteen years of fighting side by side.

Selina had called it _unavoidable_ , but Bruce knew himself better than that, knew he could have prevented from happening if he’d just been more disciplined, more devoted to the mission.

If he’d resisted with a firm hand, Kal wouldn’t have pushed. Because Kal respected his choices, respected anyone’s actually, and he would have given the berth Bruce needed to choke every feeling growing in his heart, like stepping over a sprout. He hadn’t, and now he paid the price of his own greediness.

Kal’s teasing smirk, the one most League members didn’t believe existed before they met him in person, far from the pure-hearted, good to the point of naivety hero of Earth. The dork’s smirk of when he did something conniving, cunning, searching Bruce’s eyes first, always, as if to ask, _did you see me?, are you proud?, this is between the two of us, just the two of us, you get to see me like this, past the mask and to the core, do you like it?_

Kal in his suit. He didn’t know which one Alfred had picked, he’d just told the butler to get the one that would be easiest and fastest for him to adapt on such a short notice, but it was a minor detail of no importance. It still wasn’t a picture he needed in his mind, yet here he was, picturing the silk of the shirt as it slid up those arms, rested over those shoulders, those hands slipping the buttons closed, _or open_ , over the chest and belly and the V of his hips leading to—

Bruce groaned as he shook his head to get a grip on his thoughts.

It was a fantasy he couldn’t indulge with, too guilty even for him. As soon as morning came, he would scold himself and slam coffees down like water to try and blame his heartbeat on the tachycardia, but right now he pictured the aftermath of sex with Kal’s disappointment and disgust and forced himself through the spiel of inappropriateness that would come with it. He ought to go on with his life, but he knew he could only stay wide of his friend for roughly ten minutes before the man himself shouldered through all the walls like they were paper-thin and negligible. 

And then they’d be back to square one.

Clark hadn’t tried the suit on. There was no need to, B was nothing but always precise to the fraction of millimetre and of course he had all of Kal’s measurements somewhere in his files. The note attached to the impermeable package he’d found on the GCPD rooftop said there had only been time for some minor quick arrangement, to forgive the less than stark precision of it, but he’d spent quite some time staring at the seams and even with his super-sight he’d struggled to tell the new ones apart from the originals.

It was a deep navy and smelled expensive. Though maybe that was the cologne that had come along with the suit. And the tie, the shoes, the shirt, even the socks. For a moment, Kal had thought he’d find some underwear there as well, and he’d blushed to the roots of his hair when he’d realised the pang in his chest had been disappointment that there wasn’t.

Thirsting over B’s underwear would be very wrong, inappropriate and rather disrespectful to the friend who was helping him so much. Also, teenager-y, and Clark was well in his thirty. He was over those adolescent fantasies.

He wasn’t going to take a look at his grown-up fantasies, right now. Picturing B as he helped him dress and slid kisses all over his skin, muttering in his ear about all the ways having Kal wearing his scent was making him hot with desire, how the cold façade just hid the depths of his desire to bend Kal over the table of the conference hall at the Watchtower.

Clark shook his head as if to physically dislodge the image.

No. Nope. Not now, nor ever. Kal was literally the first person B let in, the only still in so many aspects, and what if he felt that he had only been nice to get into his pants? Which was so not true, at all. Kal had just wanted to befriend him, at first; to have someone who understood what it meant to live their lives, work their jobs, shoulder the responsibilities they had. The other feelings had come after, during the hours spent together. Every wall B let down destroyed another bit of Kal’s resolve not to fall for the man, and eventually he’d been left stripped bare in front of the genuine _goodness_ of the other.

And also pining. Pining so _badly_.

Clark sighed at the sight of himself in the mirror, just in boxers and socks, taking in the desperation on his face and the pitiful state of his person.

It always rained in Gotham, he’d swear on it.

Once again, he'd had to give up on his standards and use the hotel shower. He made a bet with himself, that if he took a sample to B the man would be able to identify whatever was in that blackish substance around the edges of the shower stall -- some kind of alien mould, he would guess -- and then immediately send Kal to a decontamination shower. Now, hair wet, night gone sleepless with the thoughts slamming against the walls of his skull, half naked, he watched the reflection of himself and the suit on the bed in the mirror and wondered _what the fuck am I doing._ If he could see him now, B wouldn't laugh at him, but only because it wouldn't fit Batman’s image.

Or maybe, Clark's traitorous brain offered. Maybe he'd take off what little you have left.

Clark pictured it and immediately scolded himself again.

Eidetic memory was a bitch.

The thought of sleeping was hostile and cruel, and something in his brain rebelled every time he considered it. He'd spent the whole day revising his investigations, following all the trails he'd already tried, forward and backward, reread the data, rewatched the interviews. He'd stared at the pictures of Jason's death for so long he could have learnt every detail of them even if he weren't a Kryptonian. He'd considered Tim's words carefully, nitpicked every microscopic aspect of every interaction they'd had for any tell of lie, considered what if he'd been lying and why, but also what if he'd been telling the truth and, if so, what had really happened to Jason, why hiding the original report, why all the other oddities of the Wayne's, Tim's teeth, Richard’s abandonment of the house at the mere age of seventeen, Damian’s absence from the picture until the age of eleven, Cassandra’s speech impairment and removal from society. Not to mention, who sent the original lead, how they got it and why sending it, why now, why to Clark.

So many questions and he'd found no answer in the whole time he'd spent on them, the whole day since Tim left his room, almost the whole night if Clark insisted on staying awake much longer.

Bruce Wayne would return in the morning, which would leave Clark with his hands tied for many things, but would offer him the chance to finally take a look at his interactions with his children.

He couldn't tell if it was weird or a normal occurrence in rich families and bad luck on his part, but he hadn't caught much in his occasional spying as Superman. Most of the children had been away from the house, Wayne had been mostly at the office for an upcoming merge or with the lawyers and Duke Thomas in regard of his adoption. The most Clark had noticed was a rather close relationship between all the kids and the butler, whom they actually seemed to call more frequently than the father himself.

Clark took a deep breath.

The more he thought himself in circles, the more his head hurt and he lost optimism in resolving the situation.

And now something was bound to happen in a few hours and he could either go the fuck to sleep and be ready to face it or take a page out of Bats’ book and attempt to fistfight sleep deprivation with coffee, stubbornness and a thousand sit-ups. Or three. Clark had no idea of the specifics of B’s routine but, Rao, it wielded _results._

Clark groaned and turned his back on the mirror. On the run from his own traitorous mind, he squirreled his way under the covers and planted his face so firmly in the pillow that a normal human wouldn’t have been able to breath.

He _knew_ this wasn’t appropriate, but it was so hard to think of Batman and not _wish._

B had never looked at Clark like he was Jesus returned to Earth. He'd looked at Clark and told him, _you're so young_ , once, when they'd found out there were less than ten years between the two of them. Clark had started feeling old at sixteen, watching his friends being happy and carefree and never being allowed to say out loud what he was truly scared of when it came to his body ‘changing’. Puberty had sucked, really.

B looked at him like he was any other person on the League, which meant not like he was totally normal but like he was normal in his context at the very least. He brought him coffee and sandwiches because he thought of him as human enough to need that kind of cares, he scolded him for taking risks even if he was mostly invulnerable, he fought with him with no fear that Clark with lose his temper and hurt him. Every single instant of those moments made Clark ache for more, dehydrated in the middle of the desert.

Then came the memory he always fell back onto when he let himself hope for something more: Clark's parents had never been homophobic, but they used to be much more religious before his coming out. Church wasn't a safe place, so Clark had been exonerated from attending and eventually Ma’ had stopped going as well. Pa’ still went occasionally. He’d never dared to ask whether they missed it.

B didn't care, and Clark knew that because there had been a rather scalding exchange with a Lantern after an unsavoury joke that had ended with B threatening his resignation from the League if at any time the group felt discriminating against his bisexuality or unsafe for anyone of any sexual orientation other than straight. Clark had meant to tell him then and there, _me too, B, please, I've been alone for so long_. He couldn't say why he hadn't. Some things were just buried too deep in him to easily let them out.

But he knew it and he knew B wouldn't care and that was enough.

There was no clock anyway, but his phone said he'd managed to postpone dealing with sleep and nightmares to five in the morning. He usually woke up at this hour. Though, if his mom would be ashamed of him, there was to say that Bruce Wayne's return won't happen before three in the afternoon at least so he could afford a late morning, even if it meant springs and bugs and whatever virus lived in those sheets.

Rao, how he missed his flat.

Bruce was landing on top of the Tower, which meant Tim had to steer him clear of any secretary who might accidentally inform him of the meeting with Kent.

It wasn't going to be hard. The only part of Brucie that Bruce actually appreciated was not having to pay attention to stuff when he didn't want to, and considering he came straight from days on end of dealing with entitled rich assholes he was more than likely to be pulling that card today.

Still. Tim had a cup of coffee and Damian’s latest stint to snitch on to thoroughly distract him; and if neither worked, Dick had let something slip about a potential date and that would surely pique the interest of Bruce’s dad instincts.

When the man got off the helicopter, Lucius Fox whistled lowly. “He's pulling the sunglasses on us.”

“Must be some fine eye-bags,” Tim hummed in agreement, already lifting the coffee. Bruce took it and gulped down two mouthfuls before designing them of a grunt Tim decided to generously interpret as a greeting. As cheerfully as he could muster, channeling his inner Dick, he exclaimed, “Welcome back! How was Chicago?”

Bruce glared at him. “I'll send you next time.”

It was a recurring threat, but Bruce had some kind of lingering terror of throwing Tim to the wolves outside of Gotham so it was nothing more than trite words. He laughed.

“Take your pick,” Lucius offered. “You can come to the lab and see how I solved our latest issue,-” he glanced meaningfully at the helicopter pilot still too close for comfort and didn't specify, “-or you can go home and take a nap.”

Bruce finished his coffee in one gulp then breathed deeply with his eyes closed for a second. “Lab.”

“Wrong answer,” Tim informed him, rather gleefully. “Lucius here just changed the security codes. You'll get the new ones after Alfred says so.”

Bruce frowned, a bit darker than his usual default. “This is my building, and _my_ lab.”

Lucius smiled pacifically. “Good luck.”

Bruce sighed.

These, Tim considered, were the great moments of his job. “Come on, Alfred's expecting us for lunch and Junior has a new pet.”

A testament of Bruce's state, he looked wildly lost for a moment. Tim had an easy time leading him into building and to the elevator as he grappled with the name. He had just pressed the button for the underground parking when Bruce blinked the fog out of his eyes. “Damian.”

“Ten points to Slytherins,” Tim offered. “Congratulation for your grandparenthood, it's a crow.”

“I would rather be a Ravenclaw, actually.”

“Of course you would, you nerd. You'd hassle the door to give you new riddles to solve.”

Bruce flinched slightly. “Please, don't talk to me about riddles.”

Tim’s eyes ran to Bruce's side, where he was still rather singed from Riddler’s latest game with electricity, and huffed. “How are you doing, by the way?” Bruce grunted, again, and that was it. Tim rolled his eyes to himself. “Great, Alfred will be glad to hear that.”

“I'll buy your silence with junk food.”

“Do I look like Dick? You must be really tired to swap us.” The driver opened the door for them and Tim pushed Bruce in first, least he tried to escape, before following him in. “Do you really not want to hear about your grand-crow?”

Bruce latched his seatbelt and let his head hit the backrest. “How bad is it?”

“Damian wants to train it to bring him stuff,-” throwing stars, mainly, during patrols,“-but for now all it's doing is stealing dessert spoons from the silverware. Alfred is not amused, by the way.”

Now, Bruce’s face was full of utter desperation.

Good.

Jason didn’t like all these mushy feelings for Daddy B going around. Like, at all. He knew some shit about dads and the first rule he learnt was that you were better off without them.

He’d left the Cave in the middle of the confusion the night before, but the return to his safe-house had been brief, just a shower and a couple hour nap and out again in the sunlight, because differently from all his lazy siblings, he didn’t have a butler to buy groceries and cook for him. The local market opened early and first pick demanded you got yourself over by the time the stalls were opening, but offered in exchanged some good shit.

He got himself the necessary for three days, no more in case he had to move suddenly, what with the reporter sticking his nose around, then he went back and stuck everything in the fridge, sat on the couch and turned the TV on.

He managed for roughly twelve seconds of light-speed zapping before he turned it off again, cussed and grabbed his jacket from the couch. “Fuck them all,” he hissed.

Seventeen minutes later, he was knocking on the Watchtower door.

“ _You’re not going to try and break in?_ ” came the metallic voice from the intercom.

“With whatever trap you’ve planted? Hell no. I’ve heard my thighs are the best feature I have, can’t have you snapping them clean in two.”

Barbara laughed, but opened the door for him. So, there was that.

Stephanie was over as well when he got to the last floor, on a couch behind Barbara’s main station. “’Sup, Boy Zombie?”

“You.” Jason pointed a threatening index at her. “You are the only bird with a sense of humour, I swear. I leave my Robin legacy to you.”

“Technically, I was Robin after Tim.”

“ _Technically,_ nobody gave Tim the mantle. It was my turn to pass it down and I’m passing it down to you.”

“Whelp,” she muttered over a spoonful of ice-cream. It was something chocolate-y with brown clumps of something even chocolate-r and something caramel-y that seemed absolutely delicious. Jason plopped himself down by her side. “I guess this solves all the issues between Tim and Damian.”

Barbara snorted, “if only,” but didn’t turn in their direction. Instead, she stopped typing an apparently very long string of code to pick a spoonful of her own ice-cream, something too white to have any proper sugar in it, probably yogurt or whatever. Jason was much happier of his choice when Steph sighed and passed him a spoon, though she only slightly and reluctantly moved the tub in his direction.

She glared at him. “What do you want, aside from _my_ Precious ice-cream?”

“I cooked you dinner for five consecutive evenings.”

“So?”

Jason sighed. He took a spoonful of ice-cream because it gave him time to think, but eventually he had to turn to Barbara. “You checked out the Kent guy?”

The typing stopped. Barbara remained still for a second, the green bar of where she stopped writing on the screen blinking at her, then she sighed. She saved and closed whatever she was working on before turning her chair around to wheel closer to them. “Didn’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I did,” Jason scoffed. “Just an itch I can’t seem to scratch.”

Barbara’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Yeah, me neither.”

“Wait,” Steph’s eyes flew between the two of them. “What are we talking about?”

“Just–” Jason struggled with the words to express the vague, indecipherable feeling in his guts, then he just groaned. “He’s too good?”

“He wrote an exposé against LexCorp’s Cadmus quarters in his hometown,” Barbara added. “His mother still lived there. I checked, there have been _no repercussion_. Lex didn’t so much as try to burn the house or send her a dead animal.”

Steph tilted her head to the side. “And that’s…suspicious?”

“Lex believes in retribution, and that not taking revenge is a display of weakness,” Jason explained. “Now, against someone like Bruce, with his influence and money, he might have given up or failed. But we’re talking about a nobody from Smallville, here, and it was Kent’s first big article as well. Lex’s MO would dictate he took care of the menace before it turned into a threat.”

“Make a big deal out of it too,” Barbara added. “Let it be known what happens to those who defy him.”

“But, alas–” Jason spread his arms like a magician showing a trick, “–nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“It doesn’t really work with the rumours I found on him.” Barbara pulled up the table on which Steph had been watching some TV show and opened a file with a few deft clicks. “I got into the cameras in the break rooms at the Daily Planet. Colleagues on his floor seem to mention him every so often, usually because he’s done something nice or old-school like keeping the elevator doors open for so long the thing filled up and he had to get out to let the others ride up. He’s apparently kind, well-behaved, meek, not the best writer they have but not the worst either. People on the other floors, though, mention he’s a bit of a coward. Rumour has it he fainted the one and only time he was sent to cover crime report, a fire in a hotel lobby, and he couldn’t get a single look at the whole rescue mission. Superman even showed up and he completely missed him because he’d been carried away on a stretcher. The paramedics thought he was one of the intoxicated.”

Steph chocked her laughter on her ice-cream. “Wow. That’s super lame.”

“Dude faints for a fire, but risks life against a multimillionaire?” Jason shook his head. “Either he’s got, like, a huge fear of blood or I don’t get it.”

“The only thing I found is, he was married to Lane until a couple years aback,” Barbara passed the tablet over to Jason to show him a few opened articles. “She was the one who supported his article on Lex with the director and pushed to have his published, years ago, but she also ended up covering the fire he’d been unable to. I think he might have been trying to not infringe on her work? Even more now that they split, working together cannot be easy.”

“I guess.” Jason flipped through the articles, the original ones they’d been talking about and a couple that featured both Kent’s and Lane’s name on as co-authors. Damn, those were _really_ good. “I love Lane’s works.”

“Of course you do, you big nerd,” Barbara chuckled. When she leant forward to tussle his hair, he graciously let her do it. “Does this count as having the hots for the teacher?”

Steph’s head snapped up. “What?!”

“I went to _one_ conference hosted by her,” Jason rolled his eyes. “She’s not my teacher, just, like, a guest speaker?”

Barbara hummed. “One that you went all the way to the other side of the bay to hear.”

Jason glared at her. “Because you wouldn’t have.”

“Oh, no, I would have.”

“Then stop being jealous and let’s focus on this shit.”

“So what?” Steph scoped a huge spoonful of ice-cream and shove it all in her mouth. Jason watched dispassionately as she proceeded to choke, swallow and cry brain-freeze, before she was finally able to talk again, if still massaging her forehead. “You planning on digging up more on him because you got the hots for his ex-wife?”

“I don’t have the hots for Lane!”

“Jason, darling,” Barbara’s hand rested protectively on his thigh. “She’s almost Bruce’s age.”

“She’s literally five years younger than Bruce.”

“And Kent’s five years younger than her,” she tilted her head to the side. “I guess you might have a shot, after all.”

“Fuck you.”

Barbara laughed when Jason hit her with one of the pillows from the couch. Eventually, she wheeled herself back to her station and pulled up her link to the Daily Planet’s cameras. “Let’s get this surveillance on.”

Steph sighed and slumped lower down the couch. “Lucky us that I stocked up on the ice-cream for Cass’ return.”

Jason nodded, but when he went to try and get another scoop of ice-cream he found the tub completely empty.

Clark was lying supine on the bed with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. He glared at the ceiling, careful not to accidentally set it on fire, as he listened on, but Tim continued to prattle about his younger brother, his crow and how Wayne _had to do something_ before the Manor was turned into a zoo. To which Wayne was replying with various degrees of, _the house is big enough_. The ever present Mr Pennyworth had weighted in his own two cents on the apparently recurrent adoptions of beasts. Shortly after, a pair of light feet had joined in and only Bruce’s soft _, Hello, Cassandra_ , had allowed Clark to identify the owner. Richard Grayson made enough of a spectacle of his appearance at the lunch table that there was no need to announce him, and Duke muttered under his breath about how cereals were apparently the diet of models.

It was normal. Wayne remained mostly silent, but he weighted in occasionally to break up fights or if interrogated. His comments were drily humoured and the shade of tired of a parent after being kept awake for three nights in a row. Soon enough, his children ganged up on bullying him to bed and the man went with only a bit of resistance. He was dead to the world shortly after.

The children didn’t exactly subdue. Clark tried to remain tuned in for a while, to hear if they spoke among themselves about the abuses or at least of him and his presence at tomorrow’s gala. When none of the sort happened, but rather Tim and Damian, now without supervision, ended up in an argument about the latter’s mother, he decided to stop.

As a journalist, he always knew he had to consider all potential angles, and after his latest researches the possibility that Tim had been honest appeared sound, at the very least. 

He had also, briefly, considered the option of a third party abusing both the father and the sons, but the only figure he could find that would be close and influential enough on their lives to have the occasion seemed to be the butler, Mr Pennyworth, Bruce’s legal tutor since when he himself was an helpless kid grieving the death of his parents. The few interactions of his with the family that Clark had spied on, though, had disproved the theory quite firmly. It seemed that everyone in the house, for as in disagreement with the others, had quite the soft spot for the old man.

Technically, there could have been another person, but Clark had dismissed the theory without a spare thought. He refused to believe that Batman could do something like this, not him. He would never hurt someone to get something for himself, least of all some kids. No, absolutely not.

With a shake of his head, he moved from the bed to the small desk he’d set his PC on. If he couldn’t go anywhere with the Wayne case, he could at least get something done for his other articles.

He sat, he disconnected his brain - mostly - and he started to type.

Three drafts had come to almost completions by the time his phone rang and startled him enough from his stasis to cheerfully announce it was now deep into the night, but _Tuesday_ night. He’d spent more than twenty-four hours hissing at his keyboard about the best way to explain that Lex was a _bad person_ without being sued for defamation.

It was B, via the Justice League encrypted line.

Clark’s shoulders did _not_ drop all their tension, reading it.

He cleared his throat before answering. “I’m still in Gotham.”

“ _Thought so_ ,” came the dry reply. “ _Is there anything you can tell me about whatever reason brought you here?_ ”

“B, you’re the World’s Greatest Detective,” Clark huffed, laying back against the chair. “If I do so, you’re going to find out the whole reason, my secret identity, the name of my cat, and the colour of my underwear.” _Why, for the love of Rao, did he mention the underwear?!_

“ _You have a cat?_ ”

“No, and that’s exactly what I meant!”

“ _What?_ ”

“You have your detective voice on. The hums and grunts you make specifically when you’re trying to deduce the whole picture from just a piece of the puzzle.”

“ _I see._ ” Now, it was half amused and half tired. Clark had grown especially fond of this tilt of voice. “ _I meant to ask something of you, actually._ ”

Immediately, Clark’s posture straightened and he planted his feel on the floor firmly, ready for take-off any moment now. “What happened?!”

“ _Don’t burn a crater in my city with your hurried departures, Kal. It’s nothing urgent._ ”

He refused to acknowledge he’d been read so thoroughly. “What is it, then? Usually getting you to ask for help is like pulling teeth from Killer Croc.”

“ _Hilarious_ ,” he didn’t sound like he’d truly appreciated the joke, though. “ _I have something going on, and it might be big. I’m not asking for help, so I swear, Kal, if you try to meddle into this-_ ”

So it was bad, really bad. The worse it was, the less willing to ask for help B became. “B, I’m your friend. I’m just trying to-”

“ _Nothing might happen, for all I know. It’s all rather uncertain right now. I just need you to promise me that if something were to happen-_ ”

“-to you?!”

“ _-in general. If I go off-grid for a while or stop checking in with the League, or even if you think I start acting unreasonably and unreliably, I need you word that you’ll take care of Gotham for me._ ”

“B!”

“ _Call it my own personal insurance. Just to ease my worry._ ”

Clark closed his eyes. He felt every nerve of his body surge again, pulled to the limit and ready to snap at the slightest touch. “You know it,” he heard himself say it. “I hate that you have to ask me this. _Of course_ I’d do that. You’re my friend and that city if everything for you; of course I’d honour that.”

For a long moment, all he heard from the other end of the line was silence, which meant Batman was actually holding his breath. Then, he released it all, slowly and quietly. “ _Okay_ ,” he muttered. “ _Okay. I- Thank you._ ”

“B, please, just tell me what-”

“ _I have to go. Goodnight, Kal._ ” He hung up before Clark could stop him, and he was left staring at the screen with dread rising rapidly in his heart.

He could call again, sure, but B wouldn’t answer, he was that much of a control freak and an asshole. He could contact Wonder Woman, snitch it all to her and leave B to deal with explaining himself to the one person who knew his secret identity, whom he couldn’t physically hide from. He could hit his head against every wall in the building until the whole structure collapsed on itself. Nothing would work, most likely, but he’d feel better for trying.

Instead, he bit his knuckles and took a deep breath.

Nothing might happen, right? That’s what B said. Nothing might happen. Clark could hope for that. Fear of death was a constant in their work, maybe B just got close to it and was feeling the need for control raise its head. Clark could give him that, if nothing else.

He put the phone down, snapped the computer shut and grabbed his pyjamas to change.

Might as well get some sleep, for all he didn’t truly need it, to make the time before the gala pass faster.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Bruce arched a brow to the reflection of his son. “Like what?”

Tim rolled his eyes. Sitting in the armchair in Bruce’s walk-in closet, head resting heavily on a fist and elbow on the armrest, legs crossed, he looked exactly the kind of spoilt rich kid tonight’s event demanded of him. The first guests wouldn’t arrive for another couple of hours, more or less, but he must have slipped his persona on together with his own black suit before barging into Bruce’s room to demand he picked his outfit for the evening.

Which probably meant Alfred had left him on the task as he was too busy trying to wrestle Dick into a suit that wasn’t whatever embarrassingly bright colour he’d chosen this time, taking away all the weapons Damian had smuggled on his person and doing Cass’ hair. Duke, blessedly, was autonomous enough that he’d joined Tim just for the sake of the drama and some last minute tips on how to deal with the kind of people that would soon flood their house.

As it was, he was frowning at Tim as well, but his brother ignored him. “You’re prissy because I’m not letting you wear your shirt two buttons open. There’s your children around, even Bruce Wayne cannot go full thot at an event like this.”

“Batman going _full thot_ is not a sentence I’d ever thought I’d hear before and I’m already regretting this adoption so much.”

Bruce ignored them. “I’m just wondering why the whole black assemble,” he offered mildly. Tim could be stylish if he wanted to, more as a product of his upbringing than for a real eye for it, he just usually rarely bothered. This time, he’d been rather insisting on a slim-fit Soho wool and cashmere suit by Armani, black in every detail from the sleek inner lining to every button. Even the shirt Tim had bought for him was a deep black. The whole assemble flattered him nicely, but it gave Bruce the air of a responsible middle-aged father, not dumbass spoiled playboy who not enough brain cells to truly grow up.

“Because you just adopted your sixth kid, Bruce,” Tim replied. “You’re supposed to be in that short period of responsibility you always get when you decide to pick another orphan. You know, the _I’m ready for fatherhood this time, I swear!,_ part.”

Duke groaned. “I feel like the puppy kids promise their parents they will absolutely be the one to take care of, if they are allowed to keep it.”

Tim shot him an amused smirk. “We all are. Welcome to the club.”

“So, what?” Bruce interjected, refusing to show the unease he felt at the tilt of the conversation. “I need to behave myself tonight?”

Among all of his kids, Bruce wouldn’t hesitate to pinpoint Tim as the most deceiving. Cass was unreadable, Dick played the friendly angle, Jason had carefully constructed an aggressive facade for himself, and Damian was swinging, in his young age, between cold and passion, but always rather straightforwardly, while Duke had a more impulsive approach. Most of them were thinkers, of course, they had to be in a job like theirs, but Tim’s way of planning meant he always had several plans and as he spoke to you, he was actually crafting his moves for five weeks from now. He was also rather ruthless in his planning, and Bruce said so with full awareness that he had another three kids who killed several times in their lives. 

Tim smiled boyishly, but Bruce could see a flash of calculation pass in his eyes. “Nah,” he chirped. “People are supposed to get the feeling that your proposition won’t last long anyway.”

Bruce sighed. How he hated this part. “Very well.” He fixed the lapels on his jacket as he looked at himself in the mirror, then he tilted his head to the side. “Do you know which suit Alfred sent Kal?”

This time, it was Duke who shrugged. “He told me he took the one you were supposed to wear for the Mayor’s birthday party. He said it would be safer to use something Bruce Wayne hadn’t been photographed in.”

The one Bruce had suggested then. Good. He hadn’t attended the Mayor’s birthday because he was too busy stopping Penguin from poisoning Gotham’s water supply - _again_ \- with an highly addictive tasteless drug that would increase his deals all over the city. His excuse had been that he’d run away to the Bahamas with a model so he’d had to fly there immediately, and the suit he’d originally bought for the occasion had remained unused. He could always count on Alfred’s help.

The fact that it would suit Kal’s eyes nicely had nothing to do with it.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Clark mentally apologised to his mother and then proceeded with worse and worse expletives as he rushed around the flat in an attempt to get ready for the gala.

He hadn’t put in an alarm, rather stupidly, and his body, for all he didn’t need it, had still gained a circadian rhythm he’d thrown off with his writing flow and it had beatifically caught up with it by raising him only well past ten. After that, he’d had to call Lois for an article of hers and they’d spent the whole morning hashing it out via phone. In the afternoon, he’d tried to work on the records of the man who’d brought Jason’s file to the Manor. He hadn’t gotten access to the traffic cameras so he could only follow him out in the lobby and all it’d come clear was that the man knew exactly where all the cameras were. Assuming he’d been over at least a few times to study their whereabouts, he’d been reviewing the videos of the previous weeks searching for someone suspect, for now to no avail.

He felt stupid as he touched the suit with endless reverence, but he didn’t dare think about its cost and how awful he’d feel if he’d rip it accidentally, so the whole process of getting changed went rather slowly and humanly. Once he was done, Clark looked at himself in the mirror, his newly polished reflection in the middle of the room, and he almost laughed at how out of place he looked. 

Truly, it’d be the opposite. The the hitch from Kansas in the middle of Gotham’s elite, but at least he be well-dressed enough to try and blend in.

He’d called a cab, not wanting to stand around in the street trying to haul one as he looked like he had much more in his wallet than there actually was in whole bank account. When he gave the address, the driver sent him a look, but quietly drove him over.

Wayne Manor was, as always, impressive. The old decor followed Gotham’s favourite style, a gothic of long lines projected toward the sky, curled details, a structure that appeared lighter than it truly was. A gargoyle in itself, almost.

Clark ducked his shoulders as he approached the door and heard someone open it from inside. Of course, he’d guessed who it would be, but Alfred Pennyworth still managed to surprise him some.

He looked older from up close than he looked through the window of the car he drove for Wayne, but there was a sparkle to his look that spoke of readiness and fast reactions. Clark was ready to bet if he were human, he wouldn’t manage to get past the man.

Alfred nodded soberly. “Mister Kent, I presume. Welcome to Wayne Manor, sir. Please, this way.”

As the man led the way, Clark tried to take stock of him. He looked lean and frail in his old age and pristine suit, but the way he held himself straight was in contrast with all of it. There was a tinge of smell, to faint for any human, coming from his wrists, where gloves wouldn’t cover and sleeves might slip upward: gunpowder of some kind, bitter. 

The file Clark found on him said he had firearm training in the military, and there had been an occasion in which the police had to come retrieve a wanna-be thief from the Manor as the butler held him at gunpoint. The smell could be very much just from cleaning supplies for the weapon, indeed. It just rubbed Clark the wrong way.

He projected his hearing when they got in sight of the door, just to get an idea of what he was going to be dealing with. Bruce Wayne was currently entertaining his guests with a tale from his latest trip to Chicago - _so much traffic_ , he was complaining, _couldn’t even get the car to run a bit_ \- and his oldest, Richard, was sticking close to a reluctant Duke and leading him in his rounds to greet everyone. Cassandra was silent as always, but he guessed she had to be somewhere as well. 

Finally, he found Tim cheerfully biding his departure to an old lady with something along the lines of, _yes, ma’am, Damian is such a cutie, isn’t he?, it’s the baby-face, you see, so angelic_. The lady excused herself immediately after, and Clark smiled to Alfred to thank him for the assistance.

He walked through the door with his eyes searching for his source, when he heard the youngest Wayne mutter, in a distinct subvocalisation that probably only Tim, for his proximity, could hear. “As soon as these vultures leave, I will spread your entrails over the gardens for Titus to play treasure hunt with.”

Clark blinked. 

He was suddenly assaulted by Tim’s dry warning of Damian. _He bites_. 

Present Tim just shook his head at him and took a sip from his glass to hide the motion of his lips, “Whatever, Demon Brat,” then his eyes met Clark’s. That smile was too sudden to be real, Clark reasoned as the kid slipped immediately in his direction. “At least, Mr Kent. I was starting to believe Gotham’s unique brand of touristic structures had managed to drive you back to Metropolis.”

“I’d lie if I were to say I was not tempted,” Clark admitted, mostly out of confusion. Tim was clearly playing a game here and he wasn’t sure he was wholly apart of it. “I couldn’t refuse your invitation, though.”

Tim stopped in front of him, a bit too suddenly. Clark tilted his head to the side, but the kid was staring lower than his face, at his shirt.

Consciously, he touched in and looked for a stain. It’d be just his luck, showing up with dirty clothes at even like this, not to mention ruining B’s clothes. Guilt was already chewing at his chest.

“Your suit-” Tim frowned slightly, and immediately shook his head for a as if to dislodge the expression. He was smiling, a bit more subduedly, a moment later. “Your suit is really nice, Mr Kent. I admit I wasn’t expecting it. Where did get it with such short notice?”

The relief at the missed embarrassment almost made Clark sigh in relief. “I have to admit, a friend lent it to me.”

“A friend,” Tim spoke, rolling the word on his tongue carefully. “Well, your friend has good style, Mr Kent. You might want to learn a trick or two from him. Would you excuse me for a second? Feel free to roam around and chat, I’ll be right back.” He was gone in a blink.

Clark was starting to get the feeling this was a usual occurrence for the kid. Though, that meant he was left alone.

Indeed, for a society event, it was rather subdue. Wayne didn’t open the great ballroom, but a slightly smaller one in the west wing of the Manor, leaving the windows to open on the lake on the other side of the gardens. There was a huge buffet, terrifically big for the number of people supposed to eat from it, and the lights made the golden decor of the walls and the crystals of the chandeliers shine bright and warm. 

Excessive trying its best at minimality, Clark decided. Even the guests wore brand clothes designed to look anonymous, as if it could hide their status and wealth. He recognised the Major with his wife, all the most important families from Gotham, owners of theatres, oil companies, film studios, notably even Ryan Brossom, the CEO of a pharmaceutics industry Lex had tried to charm into a partnership for the past six months. That one almost made Clark feel giddy with anticipation at the man’s face when he learnt Wayne swept him from under his nose.

Speaking of, the man himself, capable of killing the feeling immediately.

Wayne had noticed him, probably because, he mulled, Clark had walked in, exchanged a few hurried words with his son and then remained planted in his place, stock still, for almost five minutes. Way not to draw attention.

He moved away from the entry and slid quietly to his usual corner, aiming for anonymity in the non-existent shadows. Grievously, he swore to ask B for tips on how to do that when Wayne excused himself from his partners and just headed straight for him.

“Ah, Mister Kurt, is that right?” he exclaimed, far too loud and swinging the had with his flute a bit too fast, drops spilling slightly. “I didn’t remember adding you to the guest list!” 

A few people turned to look at him at the words, frowns etching on their faces immediately at the thought of, Lord forbids, a gate-crasher among their ranks. Clark felt himself blush even though he had nothing to feel bad about. “Actually, it’s _Kent_ , Mr Wayne. Your son was so kind as to invite me.”

“Timothy? My, he should have told me.” Wayne’s smile remained on, but his eyes made an appreciative slide down Clark’s chest and legs. “I certainly wouldn’t have opposed.”

Was he-? Clark tried to keep on the smile. “I’m glad to hear it’s no problem. I’d hate to be a bother.”

“Now, that’s a lie and we both know it,” Wayne laughed, boisterous. The easiness in his ways took the fun out of eavesdropping and most of the people staring at them went back to their own conversations. The man, instead, got closer. “I think I remember you writing something on dear Lexy. Didn’t seem like you were worried about bothering him.” Clark’s eyes went instinctively to Mr Brossom. Wayne’s smile grew. “Never said _I_ worried much either.” He took a rather big gulp of his drink. “How do you know my son, Mr Kent? Tim’s a remarkably nice young man, he doesn’t run with any bad companies, so I fail to see why he might have caught your eye.”

“That’s not like that at all, Mr Wayne,” Clark shook his head politely. Mentally, he wished for Tim to return as fast as possible, but a rapid check told him the kid was looking for Alfred, calling him as he moved swiftly through the corridors. “I was assigned a piece on his work. He’s incredibly smart and talented for his age.”

“He’s incredibly smart and talented for _any age_ ,” Wayne waved him away. “He puts to shame many of my peers and older. I swear, sometimes he talks and I don’t understand a word! Though I was never the brightest tool in the shed, I’ll admit.”

The thing was, Clark couldn’t find a proof of deceit in the man’s words. His heartbeat changed just slightly as he praised his son, but Clark had heard him assure people of his drunkenness not less than three minutes ago and his heart had kept a steady rhythm back then. 

His glass full of non-alcoholic stuff, even now.

Maybe the Social Services had tightened the leash on him. Cut the drinking if he wanted to keep the children, or something. It was the first thing that came to his mind considering the scrutiny they were applying as the adoption of Duke Thomas was finalised.

It fought violently with the scenario of Wayne beating the crap out of his kids.

The man was still smiling at him. “Is tonight going to end up on the front page of the Daily Satellite, then? It would really sadden me.”

“ _Daily Planet_ , Mr Wayne. And no, I promised Tim tonight was going to be fully off-record.”

“In that case,-” Bruce took a step closer and now, now he was _too_ close to pretend it could just be a misjudged display of excitement, “-I’m _very glad_ you came over, Mr Kent.”

Clark hesitated. There was an odd feeling of uncertainty, guilt and offence building in his chest. 

Wayne was flirting with him while he was investigating Wayne for child abuse. He couldn’t know of course, but it was still surreal. And at the same time, if the man was innocent and just flirting with Clark because he found him attractive - how long had it been since someone thought so of the man in the flannel rather than the one under the crest of El? -, Clark’s hostility would be terribly rude and uncalled for.

It seemed, though, that Wayne didn’t let hesitance stop him. “I insist you allow me to get you a drink, Mr Kent. You look too lost and I cannot allow that, as the host of this house.”

“I don’t drink alcohol, Mr Wayne,” Clark offered, uncertain.

Wayne laughed. “A virgin for Kent, then!” he said, and Clark blushed again.

Without realising how, he found himself led through the crowd to the table of drinks in the opposite corner of the room. Wayne ordered a glass and offered it to him, then his hand _slipped_.

It was fake, so obviously that Clark wouldn’t have managed to react even if he’d been allowed to use his super-speed to do so. Wayne spilt a minimum amount of liquid on his shirt, just enough to leave a noticeable stain.

B would kill him. Oh, Rao, B was going to kill him. He had the Kryptonite for it.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry, what a klutz I am! Is that how the kids these days say it? Here, let me help you,” Wayne didn’t let him get a word in and briskly and efficiently led him out of the room, toward the kitchen.

Here, he picked a fresh sponge from a cabinet and wet it slightly. “Might be best if we clean it while it’s fresh. Take off the shirt?”

“I can do it myself, Mr Wayne,” Clark tried, and the man shrugged but didn’t insist. 

Clark didn’t take off his shirt. Instead, he dabbed gently at the silk with the offered sponge and sighed in relief when the stain seemed to disappear. When he was done, Wayne had his hip against the kitchen counter and was staring at him with odd intensity.

His eyes were a rather glacial shade of blue, grey peppering at his temples. There was a hard set on the jaw that was normally easy not to notice when the man’s attitude overshadowed it, but that gave him a rather sober and proper look. At the moment, he didn’t look dumb at all.

He met Clark’s eyes head on. “I know when my children are keeping secrets from me,” he started. “They think they’re sleek, but they never get along unless they’re plotting something together and the house has been extremely quiet the past two days. Then, you.” He tilted his head to the side. “What is going on here, Mr Kent? Tim is not exactly a social butterfly, I can’t believe how blatantly eager he’s been to get in your good graces.”

There was an accusation already, in the words and the clipped tone that spoke them, and Clark stiffened.

It’d be ironic, if it didn’t downright outraged him. “I have never hurt your son, if that’s what you are implying, Mr Wayne.”

Wayne waved his concern away. “I’m sure, Mr Kent. I trust Tim to defend himself or call for help if such a situation ever arise. I’m asking you what is going on.”

In a fraction of an instant, Clark went over all the possible lies he could tell, all the stories, everything that could wriggle him out of this confrontation, but then he met Wayne’s eyes head on and said, “I received an anonymous tip on your second son, Jason Todd. It implied you’d abused him, and that the story spun by the media was a cover up for how you accidentally went too far and killed him after he tried to run away from you to Ethiopia, where his biological mother lived.”

Wayne’s face darkened. “Is that what you think happened?”

He’d been doubting everything since he spoke with Tim the second time, but he found himself completely honest as he said, “Not really.” He gulped. “I think there is something going on, that there is a secret behind Jason’s death, but I don’t think it was you.” Lower, “What happened to him?”

Wayne’s face remained unreadable, but his eyes fell on the stain on Clark’s shirt. 

“We were looking for his mother in Ethiopia,” he said. His voice was rough as if he’d been screaming himself hoarse for hours, and nobody had come. “The Joker was closing a deal for a nuclear missile. He got his hands on Jay.”

Clark froze.

The _Joker_. What he knew of him came from B: Gotham’s terror, a sociopath, a deranged monster without a conscience. A madman without reasons or coherence. Chaos personified.

And the kid had gotten caught by him.

The pictures surged in his brain howling, wolves of pain begging for their moon of clarity. All those injuries-

In a small voice, he asked, “The scars from before then?”

Wayne stared at him quietly. His hand rose to the lapel of the jacket, trying to fix it to hide it, but in vain. In the end, he just thumbed the cloth between his fingers with a pensive expression. 

“Clark Kent,” he whispered, out of the blue, apparently testing the words. “Journalist.”

Clark gulped. Many options came to his mind, but he heard his voice lamely put together the words, “The friend who lent me this is going to be rather disgruntled.”

Wayne chuckled lowly, then, in the lowest voice possible, “I won’t hold it against you, just this time.”

Clark froze. Again, an explosion set off in his brain as he the world fixed itself. He considered a mistake, he did, but the chain reaction had been set off and dots connected together in a bigger picture that left him pale and queasy. That close, he couldn’t help but take in the sight of Bruce’s naked face, sculpted in massive thick lines, no finesse but rather harshness. The scar just under his ear, the wrinkles by the tail of his eyes, the firmness in the chin.

He felt like the ground was giving way under his feet and his belly torched with the knowledge that he couldn’t fly away from this. 

“B?” he whispered.

Bruce’s mouth had the barest flinch, just in a corner, but it was tellingly enough. 

Suddenly, he let go of his grip on the jacket and just moved past him to the corridor. He didn’t say anything, so Clark followed him just as silently and their brisk walk only stopped in a study, in front of an old clock. Bruce turned the hands around and something clicked.

A secret door, made of lead. Clark’s heart clenched.

Stairs. Bruce descended them quickly, at ease in the dark, but Clark floated down and passed him on the way.

Because now that he was inside the lead block that lined every wall, he could _see_. He could see it all.

The computer, the car, the weapons, the tricks. The lab. The med-bay. He knew these things, had seen them in action or at least in the background of the video-calls when B couldn’t join them for a briefing at the Watchtower for any reason.

A case with a costume inside. Clark got only one step closer before bile rose in his throat.

He heard steps behind him, but his head was ringing with a carefree laughter he hadn’t thought of for years. 

“A Robin burrito,” he murmured. The memories in his head danced and he chased them like a lost man chased fairies into a mushroom circle. “He called it that, when he- when it was cold and he wrapped himself all over in the cape. It was still yellow and he looked so small-" His voice broke. Bruce stopped walking. “You told me he’d left the job because he didn’t want to be a vigilante any longer. You told me he died only two years later.”

Slowly. “I did.”

“You lied to me! For two years!”

“Jason Todd-Wayne’s death was public and loud. Telling you of Robin’s death at the same time would have surely led you to figure out my identity.”

Clark spun around, uncaring of keeping up human pretence. “Seriously, B?! Your secret identity?!”

Bruce’s jaw clenched. “It seemed the safest course of action, back then. I wasn’t-” He stopped, closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. “I wasn’t of a sound mind, Kal.”

 _He just lost his son_ , a voice quivered in his head, but louder roared the pain, grief raising its ugly head again, now amplified by the knowledge that Robin hadn’t died in a car accident, a fast death at the very least. Rao, he’d been _tortured_ by that madman.

And _knowing that_ , Bruce had looked into his eyes the first time Clark had asked why Robin wasn’t around and told him the kid had decided he liked school better than vigilantism. Clark had been so _relieved._ One less child on the line of fire, he'd thought.

“Just tell me one thing.” His voice sounded extraneous at his own ears. Too cold, too lost, too busy staring truth in the face and feeling like the dumbest idiot on Earth, because he didn’t know Bruce, but, Rao, _he knew B._ “Did you anonymously left me the file of all you had on Jason’s death because you wanted an external person to tell you whether or not you were to be held responsible for his death and if all of your children would be better off without you?”

Silence.

“Why me. Did you already know I was-”

“No.” Bruce’s eyes stray from his to fall on the case, careful. “Clark Kent. Forty-two. Journalist of renowned integrity, stepped on a lot of important people’s toes for the sake of the truth. Was involved in an attempted murder against him after his exposé of Alexander Luthor’s criminal empire. Divorced on good terms from his wife who still works with him. Father of two. Adopted son of a couple of farmers from country town of Smallville, Kansas. Sends half his salary to his parents every month, and his kids live with them most of the time because he believes his work in Metropolis makes life too dangerous for them.” He shook his head. “You’re a family man, Kent. A good one.”

“And that makes me what? The perfect judge for your own personal trial? Screw you, B!” Clark couldn’t believe a man with such a brilliant mind could be so damning _obtuse_. “You are the most emotionally stunted asshole I’ve ever met.”

Bruce looked at him and blinked, the gesture somewhat lethargic and owlish at once. “I’ve been accused of that before, yes.”

“What are you going to do if I decide you are a danger to your children and write the article anyway? Spin it the way I read it the first time. Am I going to have my computer suspiciously cleaned up of all my evidence or are you going to just let it happen and go to jail for a murder you didn’t commit?”

Bruce’s hands clenched into fists visible through the pockets of his pants. He had cracked nails, Clark noticed as he x-rayed them to see whether he was holding onto something, and scarred knuckles. _From polo and youth brashness_ , damn, he truly was an idiot, wasn’t it? He wanted to grab them and loosen them up. He wanted to punch him in the face. 

Bruce said, “Jason deserves closure. I cannot offer him the Joker’s head, so I needed something else.”

“So you’re going to offer him your head instead. Fucking brilliant, congrats. I’m sure that if he could, he’d tell you all about how better it makes him feel that history repeated itself, just another father in jail.” Bruce winced at that, eyes as wide as his mouth was thin. Good. “Two mothers dead, it was about time you caught up with Willis, I guess.”

“This isn’t about—”

“Fuck you, B! What about your other five kids? Have you even stopped to consider what was going to happen to them if you were put away?”

“Dick, Cassandra and Tim all are adults and each have a plenty big trust fund and secure jobs in Wayne Enterprises. My quotations of the company are to be divided equally between all six of my children if I am to be stripped of them, as compensation. They all love Alfred too much to abandon him, and past experiences ensure that they’ll come together to support each others as the family is threatened by my arrest. I had Talia’s parental authority over Damian severed over claims of abuse, which I have plenty of documented evidence in a safe if anything else were to happen. His custody will go to Alfred, as will Duke’s unless he decides to ask for emancipation when he turns sixteen next month.”

Bruce’s voice never wavered as he laid out his contingencies with meticulous efficiency and steel resolve, but there was no inflection in his tone, no emotion anywhere on his face or the bend of his back or the height of his shoulders. He sounded like he was repeating his meal plan or boringly making his way through a business meeting. Completely detached, as there was no way he could be, not when it came to his children.

He was still speaking when Clark shook his head. “Are you going to tell them? That it was you.” Bruce’s mouth clamped shut. He didn’t answer. “Of course. Why confront your children over your fears of failing them when you can make up a conspiracy against yourself and watch if your absence eventually helps them.”

“You sound—” Bruce hesitated just a quarter of a second, the time Clark could have used to get from the door to the desk and throw the whole thing out of the window out of sheer frustration, “—like you’ve made up your mind. About the article.”

“I did.”

Bruce remained still. “I see.”

Clark clenched his teeth. “You’re not going to ask me?”

“I suppose I will read your article tomorrow, together with everyone else.”

Clark closed his eyes and his fists and his mind, before everything became too much and the thoughts he was wrestling desperately against got the best of him. He didn’t want to set fire to Bruce, Superman didn’t need that kind of publicity, but Rao he did _want_ to. “I’m saying this with all the honesty and love I have for you, B,” he found himself saying in a voice so cold he almost expected ice to start growing from the ceiling and on the window panes. “You need professional help.”

He didn’t stay because he knew Bruce wasn’t going to answer him anyway. Instead, he turned his back and flew out of the cave as fast as he managed.

The echo of Joker’s laughter followed him all the way to Metropolis.

Tim cussed. Alfred was impossible to find, slipping all over the Manor to check on everything, and he’d been away from the party for too long already. He’d have to deal with this on his own, _again_.

He was just outside the doors of the ballroom when he saw his brother coming out of it. Immediately, he grabbed him by the arm.

“Dick, the suit!”

Dick blinked at him. “What suit?”

“The suit Kal asked B to lend him! The one _Kent_ is currently wearing. Oh, fuck, this explains so much. How did I not realise it, his disguise is a pair of glasses. A pair of glasses!”

“Wait, what-”

“ _Kent_ is _Kal-El_. It’s his secret identity.” Tim shook his head. He tightened his grip on Dick’s arm to drag him back into the ballroom. “Leave it, I’ll explain later, where are they? We need to get them apart _right now_ before they realise it.”

“Uhm, actually-”

Tim froze with his hand on the handle. Dick’s voice had that peculiar tone he used when he’d done something he knew someone would try to have his head for, like that time he tried to swing from the chandelier even though he was a grown ass adult or when he stole the comforter from Tim’s bed to give to Titus because _Damian complained he was cold_. 

“Dick.”

“Listen, B is a full-fledged adult, he’s entitled to his own decisions. I can’t stop him. He’s technically my dad, that’s now how this works!”

“Dick.”

“So what if he wants to sleep with the reporter who’s here to write about Jason? That’s, okay, a very stupid decision, but who am I to tell him-”

“You let B seduce him?!”

“I thought that was the plan!”

“That was _Jason’s_ idiotic attempt at a plan! When have we _ever_ followed _Jason’s_ plans in our whole lives?!”

“Why are you getting mad at me, _you_ invited Kent here! Kal. Kent is Kal. Oh my god. I called him Uncle Kal all the time I’ve been Robin. Tim. Tim, I’m having a crisis. Tim, _B is fucking Uncle Kal_.”

“Don’t say it!” Tim scrunched his face with his hands like he was crumpling a doodled paper, then he groaned loudly in his palms. Dick watched him stay still for five seconds before he lifted his head, took a deep breath and announced, “I give up.”

“What?!”

“ _For tonight_. I give up. I give up on this farce and this fucking shit and whatever the fuck is this. I’ll fix it tomorrow, but on top of all of this I’m _not_ dealing with walking in on B and _Uncle Kal_ having sex. I refuse. That’s my limit and I’m not going to cross it, I’m going to build a fucking wall keeping _those images_ away from me and return happily in the confines of my comfort zone. That’s it.”

“But Tim-!”

“ _Tim out._ Try and contact me tomorrow.”

Cass’ brothers were good but dumb. She’d learnt that pretty early in her life with Bruce. 

Dick lived off cereals and let his temper get the best of him at times, too impulsive, too responsible for everyone else, too certain that every boulder had to rest on his shoulders, always. Jason was a kitten who’d been kicked into a wall one too many times and now hissed even when he wanted to purr, scratched instead of finding bed on someone’s lap, only food and Alfred got him to stick around for more than a handful of minutes every mission debriefing. Tim’s bred habit of autonomy kept him detached when he needed help the most, his brain’s first way to go was manipulation, and he startled so bad at physical affection it was painful to watch. Damian was small and angry like a tiny bird, and all the love he had inside he had yet to learn how to let out sincerely and without using it as a weapon. Duke had yet to tumble, still kept a foot out of their family, enough experience being passed from house to house to be wary of getting too cozy anywhere.

Steph, bless her heart, truly still believed she didn’t count as part of the brood, but she was smart about everything else. About feelings and mushy feelings in the chest and loving people even when it was dangerous, even when they might leave you any moment.

Yes, Cass’ brothers were dumb, but Cass’ father was dumber.

She considered facing Bruce, but facing him now was out of question. Words, especially when it came to things as complicated as her father’s mind, were too hard to rely on them to get her point across when he was hurting so bad. 

Also, finding him in the cave meant leaving now, which would alert all her brothers of their father’s whereabouts, which were far from his bedroom. They would worry, they would be afraid, and they would get mad as they usually did when they _felt_. Nobody needed that, not now. Something else, _truth_ , that was what they needed, and it wasn’t Cass who could pull it out of anyone.

Not to mention, she was rather cozy where she was, curled up under the fuzziest blanket of the house, the night sky one Alfred got her for her birthday, and firmly planted in Jason’s lap. _Wide thighs,_ she’d claimed as she climbed him under everybody’s widened eyes.

He’d rolled his eyes, but hidden from the others’ hawk-like stares he’d held onto her hips to hug her tight to his chest. She’d held her wrist and squeezed it briefly, _our secret, I promise, little brother_. He hadn’t replied, but that was okay, because she could see the muscles in his neck relax just slightly.

 _Don’t get used to it_ , he’d muttered in her ear.

 _Please, please, please_ , his hands, his shoulders, his jaw, had said.

Words, ugh.

Alfred and B let them all have a night off after sticking around for society events and allowed them movie marathons and unhealthy foods and board games without the usual _no fighting_ rule. It was nice.

Halfway through the third movie, everybody but the two of them had fallen asleep. Cass couldn’t say she was surprised when Jason gently pushed her to indicate she had to let him get up, but she didn’t have to like it either. She made sure to glare disappointedly at him the whole time it took him to get to his feet, then she sighed.

“Don’t be like that,” he huffed, lowly. “Someone’s going to have to do the heavy lifting, in this shit, and it sure ain’t gonna be fucking _B_.”

She knew that, of course. She’d known before him as well.

She rolled her eyes. “Dumb,” she reiterated, and he rolled his eyes in return.

“Yeah, well, luckily we have you to raise the bar, right?” B would have taken it for a slight at her speech impairments, but B was also notoriously bad at reading Jason. 

Cass never knew her brother as a small bright kid, she’d always ever seen him as the man with jagged edges standing in front of her now, so she never had to accept that his language had changed, in his body and on his tongue. She read the teasing in the twinkle of his eyes, the honesty in the loose hands. _I feel safe enough not to overthink my words with you_ , said the coking of his hips. _I love you so much_ , said the turn of his torso, always keeping her in front of him, afraid she was going to disappear the moment he turned his back on her.

It was telling, she thought, more than a thousand words, that he turned anyway, resignation all over his back. “Say bye to Alf for me.”

“You tell him,” she fired back, but she would do it, because Jason loved Alfred and Alfred loved Jason and somehow the two of them managed to talk, to communicate, the way the rest of the family seemed to struggle with, and Cass knew too much about being left alone in the silence to abandon Jason to that.

She watched him saunter toward the main door, never taking a second glance behind his shoulders. Even if he did, she wondered if he would notice how many people were willing to stand behind him.

Clark’s flat was all anyone would expect of a bachelor from a small town: minimal, with a handful of things that his Ma’ sent him from home, like the homemade quilt on the couch or the potted unrecognisable plant on the verge of death on the windowsill, and with a rather bare fridge.

Dressed in the comfiest flannel pyjamas Lois had jokingly got for him, he was writing down a grocery list on the notepad he’d used to keep track of his investigation on Bruce. Wayne. B. 

_Damn_ , he thought to himself as he pressed the heels of his palms heavily on his face, until he started seeing sparkles of colours behind the closed eyelids.

He’d always thought about the day he and B would have shared the confidence of their civilian identities. In his mind, it was a bittersweet moment, but so important, so poignant. They were older, old enough to consider retiring from the job, and at that point there was no reason in keeping their names a secret any longer. The world, he liked to hope, was a better place even thanks to them. They were acutely aware of all the years spent in a lie, but they had always knew the price and didn’t regret paying it. They laughed.

Clark wasn’t laughing, and B hadn’t been either.

He’d texted Lois briefly to let her know he was back in Metropolis, that the night had been a bust and that he didn’t want to talk about it. The only reason she wasn’t already over to rip that answers out of him was that she was asleep and wouldn’t notice the text until the morning. He had the whole night to wallow in his bitterness.

Then someone broke into his house.

Clark heard him, of course, but the shift from someone walking nonchalantly down the hall and then kneeling in front of his door was rather rapid. He barely had time to consider pushing his speed and get out of the flat - he was technically supposed to be still in Gotham as Clark Kent hadn’t gotten to any flight to Metropolis yet -, but his stuff was all spread around and the stranger picked the lock too fast for the risk to be worth it. Clark couldn't ascribe it wholly to skill of the person, the lock hadn't been much of a protection to begin with with how bent and rusty it was, and he himself hadn’t been paying much attention to anything around him.

He was left mourning his dignity as he feigned a jolt of terror when the door opened at his back.

“Well, now, this is awkward,” the stranger commented, voice charmingly deep and a carefully cultivated British diction to his words. His eyes had fallen on the pyjamas and had an hard time leaving them. “I should have timed this better.”

Clark didn’t have to feign the surprise on his face as he raised to his feet and took in the man’s bare face fully.

It was a kid. Or, well, not a kid really, a teenager, maybe early twenties, but with a boyish smile on his lips that somehow managed to undermine the effect of the wide shoulders and six feet of height. He was wearing dark clothes and had pitch black hair in stark contrast with the white tuft of hair over his forehead and the clear eyes for which even Clark couldn't pick between blue or green. He kept his hands in his pockets nonchalantly, but there was a knife strapped to his ankle, under his clothes, and a Swiss knife in the back pocket of his pants.

Clark kept staring at his face. If he hadn't spent the last weeks staring at all existing pictures of his childhood and puberty, if he'd only seen the images of his brutal death and his boyish traits half hidden by a domino mask, he wouldn't have recognised him. He choked on his breath as he tried to push the name out. Ironically enough, considering he’d spent more than a month repeating it without a break.

Jason smirked. “Hello, Uncle Kal. Got you at a bad time?”

Clark didn’t even check if Jason had closed the door behind him. He half flew and half sped his way into the boy’s space and when he finally felt him in his arms he had to hold himself at check not to hug him too thigh.

He felt, rather than saw, Jason rolling his eyes as his hands came to his chest to push Clark away, fruitlessly. “Get off, man, I have a rep to maintain.” Clark couldn’t give a shit. He told the boy so. “Same fucking cloth, you and the old man, I fucking swear,” Jason struggled a bit more. “I’m going to zap you, don’t test me.”

If Clark pulled back, it was to take in the sight of the boy, not for the threat. Rao, he looked so much older, so much bigger.

Much sadder, as well. Hurt.

“What happened?” he asked, lowly.

Jason wriggled out of his grip and slid past him toward the camp that had been set up on the kitchen counter. He stared at the pictures and the notes and Clark stiffened, suffocating a curse, but the kid waved him off. “Ain’t like I haven’t lived through this shit,” he pointed out. Clark bit his tongue on a sob. “Also, you misspelled _goddamn asshole_.”

“I’m rather sure I didn’t write those words.”

“Well, you should. It’s what he is.”

B was. Together with an whole lot of other equally annoying or abysmally more lovely things. He worked in extremes, never one for the quiet halfway’s. Clark at times hated and at times loved that.

Jason rapped his knuckles on the table. “You gonna publish this shit?”

“Jason _,_ ” his voice broke, this time for good, but Clark couldn’t care less. He was pretty sure he had tears all over his face, anyway. “ _How_?”

No answer was forthcoming. Instead, Jason sat on his chair, ripped the page with the grocery list out of the notebook and started anew, himself, on a blank page. He’d filled it in halfway when he finally sighed deeply. “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to,” he admitted. “Something, whatever, brought me back. It’s been a shitstorm ever since, but I’m mostly good now. Stable. Back to talking with the family and all that stuff.”

Clark watched him write without trying to peek. Jason had always been a private kid with too many dark secrets for his years, and pushing him ever only got a fire started, a fight that took days to tame. He didn’t trust easily, not adult men at least because he sure didn’t think twice before fawning all over Wonder Woman like she hung the stars and moon. Time, he’d never been allowed but he needed, desperately, to sort the ugly memories in his mind before he could share them and ask for help.

Jason finished a page and went on. Clark put on some hot water.

He only had tea that B gave him for a Christmas and he struggled with the urge of throwing it at a wall for a moment. When he finally put it on, Jason cheerily informed him that he was doing it wrong, with all the giddiness of a child who caught an adult unprepared. He sent the kid the most reproaching look he could muster, which probably wasn’t much.

Jason filled three pages and a half and then slammed the notebook closed. The pen he threw on the table in front of him.

“It’s all bullshit-,” he stated firstly, “-but you can make an article out of it and it will explain why Clark Kent, from nowhere in Kansas, and motherfucking Bruce Wayne suddenly become the best of friends.”

There was a pang in his chest at those words. “Jay-”

“Please,” the kid interrupted him, “-you’ve been through worse fights and always got out of his closer than before. I ain’t buying this _you went too far this time_ shtick you have going right now. You’ll forgive him even if he doesn’t deserve it yet and he’ll do everything to deserve it because you’ve forgiven him when he didn’t expect you to. I didn’t want to be the one to break it to you, but it’s kinda your thing.”

It was the truth, of course, but Clark elected to ignore it. It was his private time to be mad, right now. “If that’s bull, do I get the real story out loud? Off record?”

Jason picked his mug and took a sip from it. He cussed the shittiness of the tea, of course, but gulped another two mouthfuls like it was alcohol and he needed the burning courage. “Too long, too fuzzy, but the condensed version was my bio mom sold me to the Joker. B thought I was safe with her, he was too late to get me. Later on, I return to life but the League of Shadows get their hands on me before B can, late again. Shit happens, I get mad at the old man and decide to explore my teenage rebellion by turning into a crime lord, I try to kill Timmy, B finds out it’s me, we fight, I leave town for a while, sort myself out with some help and, whatever, now I’m here. I’m not a _crime lord_ anymore, but I’m not exactly following B’s rules either. We’re working on it, which means we usually shout at each others until Alfred gives us the Disappointed Look of Doom and we make up because we don’t want him to kill us.” He shrugged. “That’s the gist of it.”

It was, most definitely, not the gist of it. It was a condensed, overly simplified, censored version of a story that Clark was sure contained much more pain, blood and grief than Jason’s nonchalant voice wanted to let him believe. 

It was such a Bruce report, just a bit more sassy but equally detached and cold, that Clark couldn’t help but snort. He immediately covered his mouth after, embarrassed with himself. 

Jason grinned. “That’s why I liked you better.”

Clark shook his head. “Tim?”

“We’re good now,” Jason waved his worry away with his hand. “What’s a couple assassination attempts between brothers, after all?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“That’s because you’re an only child. What do you know of the intricacies of brotherly love? The primal urge to strike on sight and the abysmal need to protect at the same time? It’s a fucking trip.”

Clark shook his head, but he couldn’t help the smirk rising on his lips. “If you say so.”

“I motherfucking say so, yes.”

“Language.” He watched Jason get up from the sit and bring the mug to the sink to wash it. He said, “I’m really mad at him.”

“So am I most of the time,” Jason replied easily. “He has that effect on people, always had. Even on his best days, he can be barely tolerable. So what does it say about you that you stuck around for fifteen years and counting?”

What did it tell? That Clark was hopeless?, that B was redeemable? That he’d spent so long loving a mask and now he got to see the face underneath and, well, he’d been disappointed that it wasn’t perfect? 

Had he ever been expecting perfection from B, to be honest?

“Get some sleep,” Jason ordered, walking over to the door again. “Tomorrow, stay mad at him. The day after still, and how long you fucking need to. He does deserve a good ass kicking every once in a while.” He turned to sneak Clark one last smirk, “But when you stop being mad, just come over. Alfie’s food is so good it makes up for B’s personality.”

He was gone the moment after, but Clark’s followed him all the way to the bike he’d parked in the alley and watched him turn on the comm. “ _Done,_ ” he said, tersely. “ _I give him a week most. You’re scrubbing all evidence of me being here, right?_ ”

Oracle’s voice piped in from his helmet. “ _Did you also tell him that talking on the phone with his ex-wife at their workplace about his secret identity is not a safe conduct for vigilantism?_ ”

“ _I’ll leave that particular scolding to B._ ”

Oracle laughed and hung up. Jason started his bike. Clark closed his eyes.

He would forgive B, eventually, of course he would. He always fucking did. He just needed to stay mad at him for a bit, that was all. Just a bit mad.

The loss had awakened in his chest, all over again. It was softer now, dulled by time and elaboration, but the knowledge that Jason was alright, _breathing, alive_ , stung like alcohol on an open wound: sure, it helped the healing and would do good in the future, but right now it fucking hurt.

Or, well, so he’d been told. Whatever, it was a good comparison and he’d be using it in some article. Speaking of which.

Clark opened his eyes and stared at the notebook resting innocently on the table in front of him. Jason said it was stuff for his article but also that it was all a bunch of lies, and he ought to remember that Clark took his professional integrity rather seriously.

Careful, as if handing a reliquary, he opened it and flip through the pages to Jason’s neat, elegant cursive. He giggled as he remembered the kid practising it under Alfred’s careful guidance, how proud he was of the twirls and curls he used.

He scanned it fast at first, trying to skim the text for the important points. Joker had become _a group of criminals_ working on all kinds of illegalities from fake documents to human trade, and Sheila was mentioned for her true role in the whole story, a corrupted volunteer selling drugs underhanded to the group. A tale about her developing a debt with those men after failing a delivery, and Jason’s timely arrival on the scene not much as her biological son but as the newly acquired son of a billionaire. There was the _kidnapping part_ where she sold him to the criminals, some sort of ransom had been added to the story, and then apparently the spark from a lamp falling too close to a crate of explosives. Boom.

Then, Clark frowned. He kept reading, eyes going wide and jaw coming loose as he took in the web of lies Jason had come up with. His slapped a hand on his mouth as he reached the third page, all speaking of events allegedly to happen in the very next day and five days from then.

A startled laughter made its way through up his throat and Clark let it out as he threw the notebook back on the counter.

“Crazy freaks,” he muttered, but he couldn’t help the crumpled mix of amusement and wonder and relief accompanying his annoyance. “The whole family, a bunch of crazy freaks.”

He could spend the night naming every absurd shit any bat had pulled during the years, but that would be a waste of time, with nobody to hear him and no way to many them see reason, so, instead, he switched to his custom.

 _Apparently_ , Superman had some work to do tonight.

Truly, he’d have to have words with Jason about taking for granted that he’d be down to help with whatever plan he came up with.

Later, though.

A full week went by without any news from Kal.

He hadn’t disappeared, Bruce had followed on TV his actually rather intense activity in North Africa. He’d been dismantling a human trafficking ring that supplied free labor in not thoroughly documented coffee plantations, so it made sense that he’d be too busy to publish the article about Wayne’s case of domestic abuse.

Still, if Bruce had known, he wouldn’t have come clean about his scheme to the kids at breakfast the day after the gala. They’d been all rather upset with him. Dick had yelled quite some and Damian had stormed off after him. Steph had hissed if he’d burned his brain out with one too many sleepless nights. Jason hadn’t even been there, had left in the middle of the night, which had hurt Bruce a bit since he’d hoped to at least have a talk with him before the storm hit; of course, he hadn’t been answering his phone either. Barbara had projected a green screen with the words _You’re An Idiot_ on his every technologic device. Tim had just stared at him coldly for a second before shaking his head.

“What do we do?” he’d asked, cold.

“Nothing,” Bruce had replied in what hoped was a submissive tone. “We wait.”

“Wait.” Tim had stood up and left as well.

Only Cass had remained, and she’d placed gently on the table the coffee pot that had slipped out of Alfred’s hands as Bruce had shared his announcement. She’d left her hand on his wrist and smiled gently, “Wait.”

Bruce had put his hand over hers. “I love you a lot, Cass.”

Her smile had been blinding, and he’d ached, missing it already. “You dumb.” She’d sauntered away, completely unbothered. 

Bruce had thought it weird back then, but now he wondered if she didn’t know something he’d missed. He’d expected Clark’s article to come out in a day, two at the latest, but it had been seven now.

Dick was watching the news-feed with him. It was just about the only thing they did together these past days, watching the news when it came up waiting for the story to break. Every time it didn’t, Dick stood up and left the room stiffly and silently.

This time, just as the TV showed Superman answering questions about how the criminals obtained their victims for the slavery system he’d just dismantled, the phone rang.

Dick paled. “Shit.”

Bruce met his eyes and then answered it.

He caught from the corner of his eyes that all his children had rushed into the room, which meant they couldn’t have been far to begin with. Alfred himself stood stiffly by the door.

“ _Mr Wayne,_ ” greeted a female voice, stiff and hurried. “ _This is detective Lydia Johnson._ ”

There it was. “Detective. What is it?” 

“ _I’m sorry for telling you on the phone, Mister Wayne-,_ ” she answered, managing to actually sound remorseful, “ _-but I’m calling from Gotham General Hospital._ ”

Bruce frowned, confused. Instinctively, he made a rapid count of the heads in the room, but all were accounted for, except for the one usual absentee. “I don’t underst-”

“ _We have a young man here, Mister Wayne, that Superman brought in a few hours ago. He claimed the kid to be Jason Peter Todd._ ” 

For a moment, his ear buzzed with the silence of his vanished thoughts. His brain imploded. “Excuse me?”

“ _I truly wished I could call you with more certainty, Mr Wayne, but at present we have not manage to confirmed the kid’s identity. The hospital did run some tests and the results seem to match well enough with your son’s old records, age and everything, keeping his growth into account. We do not wish to give you any fake hopes or make you relieve such awful pain, but Superman was rather insistent. Would you be willing to come down for an identification? And if you have anything we might use for a DNA test it would be incredibly useful. Again, I’m sorry-_ ”

“Jason,” Bruce’s voice came out choked to his own ears. “Superman… found Jason.”

“ _Allegedly,_ ” the detective underline. “ _Will you-_ ”

“I’ll be there in five.”

“ _Mr Wayne-!_ ”

He hung up.

Alfred blinked owlishly at him. Dick had pulled Damian close to his side and was still holding onto him, but Tim was staring at Cass.

She just smiled to Bruce encouragingly. Careful, she placed her fingertips on his face to arrange his traits into a grotesque exaggeration of desperate expression. “Fake it well,” she ordered.

“What’s going on,” he demanded, but she shrugged.

“Jason,” she replied, like it was enough. “Four minutes.”

Cassandra’s stubbornness outmatched that of anyone else in their family, so Bruce just got up and sped to a car. If she wasn’t going to tell him anything, he would find out himself.

Mid-drive, he dialled Oracle, but she let him go to voicemail.

He half-heartedly parked the car and took the steps to the entrance by-two. As soon as he pushed the doors open, a woman in her late forties approached him with a scowl. She wasn’t in the nurse scrubs so he guessed this was the detective, since she shook her head at him. “You must have broken an whole lot of traffic laws.”

“Bill the tickets to my lawyers,” he replied, drily. “Where is he?”

Her face flashed slightly with uncertainty, but it was just a second. Steel replaced her momentary confusion, and she led him through the corridors with an equally dry, “Here.”

They reached a secluded room of the ICU and Bruce’s heart missed a beat. She must have noticed because she shook her head. “The hospital put him here for observation. He’s not terribly banged up, luckily, but they feared a shock reaction, and the results on his lungs aren’t done yet. The conditions in the plantation were awful and the quarters he’d been locked in were even worse. They want to take all precautions.”

“Plantation.” Clark’s latest stunt as Superman. In Ethiopia of all places. “What is going on?” 

The detective shook her head. “First the identification, alright? I’ll explain the version we’d been given once we know if there’s any truth to it.”

She opened the door for him and Bruce walked in slowly.

Indeed, Jason didn’t look any worse than he would after a rough patrol. He had a split lip and a black eye, the rest of him was covered by the hospital gown but he was sitting up himself and eating from the hospital tray without assistance so he couldn’t be hurt too much. He looked up as people entered his room and his eyes immediately went wide.

Too wide, Bruce decided.

Jason let the spoon fall into his jelly cup and moved his mouth a couple of times, as if testing the words, before croaking in a rough voice, “D-ad?”

Bruce swayed physically at the word. He remained frozen in his spot, unable to comprehend why would Jason call him _that_ when he hadn’t for five years and-

Jason was hugging him. Jason had gotten up from the bed and now was hugging him, _thigh_.

In his ear, he whispered, “Come on, old man. You can fake it better than this.”

Bruce relieved breath wasn’t totally a play. Jason’s voice had its usual sarcastic tilt to it and the jab felt more familiar than anything else. It was still his Jason, just up to his chin in whatever scheme he and Superman had come up with.

He decided it could wait, and he hugged his son back.

Clark Kent’s article came out the day after, an exclusive for the Daily Planet: _The End of a Nightmare - The story of how Jason Todd lived in captivity for the past five years before finally being reunited with his family._

Bruce read the article in its every word, for as honey-clad as Clark’s prose was this time around.

The story described by Clark went roughly as it truly did in reality for the first part, all the way to the explosion, but then took a turn and became pure fantasy as if straight from a novel.

Claiming his main source to be Superman, the local police and a repentant criminal looking for a lesser sentence, Clark had written that Jason’s kidnappers, scared of Wayne’s considerable reach, had decided to move him away from the warehouse well before the explosion had happened. Another kid, according to his version, had been present at the warehouse, supposedly to be sold on the black market. His, the body found by Bruce when he’d run to the scene to find his son. Unable to know about the situation, everyone had just assumed the _unrecognisably burned_ body to be Jason Todd’s and left the man to grieve without following through with a DNA test.

The real Jason Todd had been taken to a village many hours by car away. When his captors had learnt of what had happened, they’d also learnt of Wayne’s rage on the culprits, the desperate attempts of the authorities to placate such a rich powerful man by cracking down hard on the whole group. With a body, they’d been afraid they wouldn’t be believed when they claimed to have the original kid, and reaching for Wayne as he was back in the States seemed too dangerous a risk. So, they’d done whatever else they could have to cut their losses.

They’d sold Jason as soon as possible. He’d ended up in a coffee plantations where, as time and fatigue and abuse continued, his brain had tried to protect him by causing him an amnesia about his whole life before the kidnapping. 

Then on the date after the Wayne gala, Superman had found out about the slave trade and freed the prisoners. He’d found Jason among the prisoners a few days later as he made his rounds among them to promise they were safe and would soon be returned to their families. Being intimate with Wayne for his involvement as the Justice League’s main sponsor, he’d recognised the kid and tried to track the story of what had happened, then, once assured of his identity, he’d immediately flown him to Gotham General Hospital.

Bruce Wayne and his family had supposedly decided for a single interview to get the press off their backs and allow Jason the time to heal from his traumatic experience. Clark Kent had been chosen because Lane had been busy and he’d been involved in an article for another of the children not long before.

Funnily enough, this was the first time Bruce heard of most of this. 

Jason rolled his eyes at him as he shoved another chunk of Alfred’s lasagna in his mouth. “Stop being prissy,” he ordered. “You’re supposed to be _delighted_ of my return.”

Bruce frowned. “I didn’t know you wanted to return,” he admitted.

Jason shrugged. “It’s gonna be a pain in the ass for a while and being the Red Hood it’s gonna be harder, but it’s whatever. Better than that bullshit martyr plan of yours. Ever heard of the words, _I’m sorry_ , old man? Would have spared you an whole lot of troubles.”

“It’s not just about being sorry. It’s-”

“Uh uh, don’t care,” Jason shoved the last bit of food in his mouth and immediately got up to bring his dish to the sink. It was the middle of the night and Bruce had caught his son getting himself a midnight snack. 

He’d put Alfred’s lasagna in the microwave. There had been an exchange of looks that said, _I won’t tell if you don’t_ , and Jason had made a plate from Bruce as well.

The Manor was blessedly quiet, mostly because the majority of his kids were still holding a grudge with Bruce. Patrol had been suspended by Diana’s orders as she’d come over to look after the city as he took a couple days off to deal with the new situation.

It was peaceful, but Bruce didn’t feel settled.

Jason scoffed at him leaning against the sink. “I know brooding is your thing, B, but we could do without that right now.” He looked down at his feet. “You ain’t going to kill the Joker, okay, I get it. I still don’t _agree_ , but I’m over expecting that.” Bruce blinked slowly. “Cass and I talk. She’s been helpful. We’re both getting better from that. Now don’t go crying on me.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t expected it. Cassandra and Jason were rather opposite in their history with killing, from a hundred to zero for her and from zero to a hundred for him. How curious, that they could get along so well. “Then?”

“I’m back,” Jason affirmed. “Original plan was to wait until you put your head out your ass and _asked me_ , but Cass pointed out you would sooner self destruct than think about it and guess she was goddamn right, uh?” A tilt of the head. “On a different topic, what about Clark? You heard from him yet?”

Between the two topics, Bruce would have rather picked setting himself on fire. “You should go back to bed. Your injuries haven’t healed yet.”

“Jeez, B, I let some slavers knock me around a bit before kicking their asses, I’m _fine_. Stop being a big baby and go apologise.”

“Clark doesn’t want to see me.”

“When has _that_ ever stopped you, truly?”

“He thinks I’m crazy.”

“Duh. We all do even on a good day, go figure when you fucking try to get yourself landed in jail. Come on, B. The UST had been killing me long before the Joker.”

The horrible joke hit first and Bruce cringed, then he realised the rest of the sentence. “This has nothing to do with-”

“Yes, it does.” Jason moved to the freezer and pulled out a tub of ice-cream, then he grabbed a soup spoon from the drawer. “Get outta here, B. We’re all so tired of this shit. The man’s fucking invulnerable, no Rogue will ever be able to kill him ‘s long as they don’t know his superhero identity. And Bruce Wayne has all reasons to get to know Clark Kent after he took care about such a delicate topic for him. What else do you want?”

Bruce didn’t answer. Instead, he got up and moved to leave the kitchen. On his way to the door, he stopped briefly, just enough to steal a one-armed hug before his own overthinking or Jason’s pride got in the way of it, then he left.

He didn’t go to his bedroom.

Clark was in hiding, so what? Lois was scary when she thought he’d been keeping his articles from her. Which he technically was, but only because after Jason had done his bit of leaving him the notebook he’d flown to Ethiopia and let himself be captured by the slavers he’d been taking info on since he and Barbara had figured out Clark’s identity from his office talk.

He really needed to be more careful about it. 

So he’d taken a few days off, with Perry’s blessing because _those stories are ugly shit, turn your head off for a while, Kent_ , and he was currently spending them in Smallville, very far from Lois and from Gotham.

He could almost hear Lois’ voice in his ears. _Coward_.

Yes, he was a coward, so what? He was _entitled_ to be a coward in his civilian life, okay? Actually, his whole cover depended on his cowardice, as a matter of fact.

He didn’t really pay too much mind to the sound of the engine even as it turned on the street to their farm, two miles northern, because he recognise the sound of Pete’s dad’s beat up Chevy. Most likely the man was bringing over the metallic net they had ordered to fix the chicken cot, so Clark kept on his work of cutting up logs. It wouldn’t be cold enough to lit up the fire for another couple of weeks yet, but he didn’t want Ma’ to have to do it herself, for all she claimed she wasn’t _that_ old yet. He had super-strength, why not misusing it?

The Chevy parked and Pete’s dad greeted mom loudly. She replied just as vocally, and Clark turned and froze.

“Fucking asshole,” it came from his heart.

Bruce shrugged, not at all repentant. “I told your mother you invited me over claiming that the countryside air would do good for my Jason in his recovery.”

“Jason’s here as well?”

“You didn’t listen?” But he knew that. He knew Clark would recognise the truck and stop pay attention to it. Similar situations had come up during missions and B had never missed scolding him for it..

Clark glared at him. “What do you want?”

Bruce shuffled on his feet. It was a rather blatant tell, which Clark knew it was killing him to show and not just suppress like any other feeling-related thing. “I’ve been receiving many opinions in these past days, stating that I owe you an apology.”

Clark arched a brow. “Did Dick-” _Nightwing_. Nightwing was Dick Grayson. Fuck, “-yell at you?”

“Multiple times,” Bruce nodded. “And Alfred and Tim. Damian yelled at me that I had compromised a valuable, if insufferable, ally for my outer space missions. Jason called me a pussy, which Stephanie smacked him for. She said she agreed with the sentiment, though.” He thought about it. “Cassandra called me dumb, but she’s not currently mad at me, at least.”

Clark mentally paired each name and secret identities. “Cassandra is smart,” he decided. He’d only met Black Bat a few times, but she was lovely. “Jason less so.”

The wind picked up, and Bruce stared at him until it quieted enough to speak again. “You brought him back to me.”

That was- Okay, that was big, Clark could tell. He’d spent the past few days with Jason as they adjusted his cover and he’d gotten the details of how the relationship between him and Bruce had been, which is to say not good at all. 

“He came up with the plan,” he found himself saying. “I got my hand quite forced in helping him. He _wanted_ to come back.”

“So I’ve been told. I just never thought-” Bruce shut his mouth closed. Clark found it funny, because _that_ was something he easily recognised from B. As the cowl didn’t cover the lower half of his face, Clark found himself recognising every minuscule wrinkle of those pursed lips, the pale shade they took as they clamped down on an emotion too big to share. For some reason, it destabilised his anger, making it quiver closer to something else. “It doesn’t feel real-,” Bruce finally finished, “-that he’s back.”

Clark was still a bit mad, but there were many other memories of B that woke anger in his chest, and many more that brought to him something completely different. 

He thought of B carrying a sleepy Jason on his back, Robin costume on and Batman’s cape held thigh in his tiny fists. He’d fallen more for the man every time he saw him allow himself some gentleness.

Jason’s death had erased most of that softness, Clark could see it now that he had a proper timeline to work with. Loss and grievance had devastated him, and Clark hadn’t been there, not for the first two years, not when it hurt the most.

“I’m sorry,” he found himself whispering. “I- He’s not going anywhere now.”

Bruce’s fists were clenched in the pockets of his coat, even as stepped closer to Clark. Enough to touch.

“I’ve been thinking,” he started, looking at Clark’s hands rather than his face. He quietly took them in his and examined them. “No writer’s callus.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, B. Even if I weren’t _me_ , writers type nowadays, you know.”

B, of course, ignored him. “When I led you to the kitchen, I knew who you were, _really,_ but I still wanted you to confront me. I wanted to hear it before I saw it on paper. Jason had been to the Manor a couple days before and I’d seen him with the others and I- I needed someone to tell me they saw what I saw; that they could have been a family if I only I hadn’t been there to ruin it all.” Lower. “Everything I touch, I burn.”

“B-” Clark interrupted himself. He shook his head, and immediately Bruce let go of his hands. He grabbed them back. “You damn idiot, that’s not what- You’re so _dramatic_ , you know that?”

“It is part of my job,” B replied, still staring at their entwined fingers. “But still-”

“No _but_ ’s. Shut up. I forbid you from overthinking any more. Jeez, for someone so smart, B, I swear!”

“Excuse me?”

Clark shook his head. “I’m done excusing things, B. I’m done with _excuses_ in general.” He lowered his forehead to touch Bruce’s. “You make me so mad sometimes I want to put your head into a wall.”

“When you meddle into my family matters, I want to pull the Kryptonite from the vault.” Bruce grimaced. “Sometimes you _are_ right, though.”

“And most of the times _you_ are, but when you aren’t, you get wrong spectacularly, you know.” Clark thought of the Watchtower, of arguments during briefings and jokes over coffee, of attending to wounds and celebrating victories. He thought of tears - mostly his - and punches to walls - mostly B -. He said, “I’ve gotten used to you.”

A tiny smile flickered on Bruce’s lips. “Usually, that isn’t a good thing.”

“Getting used to people you spend most of your time with it’s natural,” Clark complained. “It’s only bad when _used to_ equals _tired of_.”

“And you’re not tired of me, yet?” Bruce asked.

Clark shrugged. “I don’t think I can,” he admitted.

If he strained his senses, he could hear Ma’ as she showed Jason the kitchen and allowed him to help her put away something he’d brought along. She was careful with the boy she thought just back from Hell - and maybe, to a degree, he was - but not pitying, and Jason was forcing out the British accent he got from Alfred and calling her _ma’am_ despite her protests. Pete’s dad turned on the Chevy and left.

They were alone.

“I was saying, I’ve been thinking,” Bruce repeated. “Evaluating, rather. The pros and cons, if you were amenable, of pursuing something.”

Clark could lift a bridge and his heartbeat would stay the same as if he were laying in his bed dreaming of flowers. Now, it skipped. “Yeah? And your conclusion?”

Finally, Bruce raised his eyes to meet Clark’s. “I don’t see why you would want it, but I am desperate to try.”

It was the hardest admission, a weakness exposed and left for Clark to take advantage of, and Bruce’s hands were trembling slightly in his. Clark didn’t answer.

Clark kissed him.

Bruce kissed with all his emotions on his sleeve, all his masks gone to dust. The fear, the instability, the uncertainty, but all his desire as well. Clark wasn’t surprised, he had known B wasn’t able to let himself feel love without the terror that someone would rip it from him since long before he’d found out his identity. This, he could work with.

He’d hoped to be allowed to work with this, actually.

Finally, when he pulled out, his hands had found Bruce’s hips and they foreheads were touching again. “ _Pursuing something_ ,” he repeated. “I can’t believe you have a reputation as an irresistible playboy.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Pretence is easier.”

“Okay, but, B. _Pursuing something._ What is this, a business partnership?”

“It can be nothing at all if you keep this up, Kent.”

“Nah,” the smile came natural to his lips. “You _love_ me.”

Bruce’s expression was long suffering and Clark burst out laughing.

Which meant he didn’t hear his Ma’ coming to look for them. Luckily, Jason found them first, though the expression on his face claimed he would have rather not. “Great, now I’m ever more scarred for life,” he huffed grumpily.

Clark laughed again, but instead of letting go, he pulled Bruce flush to his chest.

The kids had fallen into a routine. By the third time in which Jason stole something from Damian and hid it in Tim’s room, so Damian assaulted Tim and Dick stepped in to divide them and Duke and Steph exchanged money with Barbara for who knew what bet as Cass sat placidly in Jason’s lap, effectively shielding him from any potential retribution, Bruce was _done_ with each one of them.

Five thousands square miles of mansion and they couldn’t stay out of each others’ way enough to cut down their average of three attempted assassinations per day. Why? He didn’t get it.

“That, Bruce,-” Clark commented sweetly in his ear as he spooned him by the kitchen counter, hand draftily fixing him a cup of coffee as he kissed his cheek, “-is because you’re an only child.”

Bruce elbowed him in the ribs, then kissed him on the lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr @agapantoblu


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